Mary Isdale MacNab: A Collecting Legacy Stephen Webb describes his journey to discover and collate, for the benefit of us today, the known and previously unpublished dances in original form as taught by Mrs MacNab in her classes and for festivals. The Collection’s Story Unfolds Fiona kindly sent me these records as pdf files, whilst also lodging the originals in the RSCDS Archive. I have read most of these files that run into just under three hundred and found it fascinating being transported back to an earlier time from 1953 up to 1991 in the then Scottish dancing world when communication was by ‘snail mail’, especially when it was transatlantic. Some dances were typed, some handwritten - as was most of the correspondence. In one, Miss Milligan, writing to Mrs Sutorius in March 1967, not long after her aunt had passed away, explained that there could be no copyright on ‘tradition’ and that she had created rough notes of the dances from what Mrs MacNab had told to her ‘by word of mouth’ on which the printed dances were based (presumably, 1st to 9th Sets). Mrs MacNab often said to Miss Milligan when watching one of her dances being performed, ‘That is not exactly as I meant, but it is very nice.’ Miss Milligan expressed affection for her saying, ‘Mrs MacNab whom we knew and loved, has gone ...’ Adding, ‘I will be glad for you to use my material in any book you intend to print … I hope you get a wonderful memorial for Mrs MacNab whom we shall never forget.’
Mrs MacNab in the 1960s. Photo: Sharyn Elder
How this Collection came About Several years ago, I became interested in the ‘The Missing MacNaberries’, this being what many Canadians affectionately called Mrs MacNab’s collected dances. Looking at the combined RSCDS 1987 two-volume publication of Scottish Dances collected by Mary Isdale MacNab, I noticed that it had omitted two of the original 29 dances because they were not actually said to be collected by Mrs MacNab, yet they formed part of the original Sets. These two dances were eventually reprinted and published by 2014, the last being Tir nan Og. A book of Pilling style diagrams for all these dances, prepared by Angus Henry of Darwin, Australia, had been published by the RSCDS in 2006. Incidentally, The MacNab Dances in Diagrams was the Society’s first publication to include dance diagrams in this complete dance form. From a passing conversation in St Andrews in 2018, Fiona Grant told me that Chris Brady, a traditional English step-dancer, dance researcher and member of Reading Cloggies had given her for safekeeping and publicity purposes a box of about five reams of dances and letters collected by Mrs MacNab. He made these photocopies when visiting Mrs MacNab’s niece, Elizabeth Sutorius (1915-2009), in the 1980s, with the idea of publishing them. The originals were lost after Mrs Sutorius died. Chris was keen that the documents should be on open-access and Fiona agreed to scan these and distribute them to anyone interested. Mrs MacNab’s Last Will and Testament (registered June 1967) in subclause 3b states: To deliver unto my niece Beth Sutorius of…. Santiago…. All my books, records, documents, articles and materials dealing with dancing. It was her niece’s wish expressed here that this new archive resource, endeavours to honour: Mrs MacNab left all her records, rights and title to her niece, Mrs Elizabeth Sutorius, of San Diego, California, who intends to make the dances from this famed collection available to teachers of Highland dancing throughout the world, thus establishing a living memorial to this wonderful lady. And I would interpret this to mean really, the wider Scottish dancing world.
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Alistair Aitkenhead at St Andrews, dancing Brig o’Doon in 1952. Photo: Wilson Nicol Hence the idea of a Mary Isdale MacNab Collection then formed and is available now as a new interactive online dance resource for teachers and dancers to explore and use at: http://www.rscdslondon.org.uk/mary-isdale-macnab-dances/ It is clear that Mrs Sutorius wrote to Dr Hugh Thurston in Vancouver, a friend and dancer in Mrs MacNab’s Braemar Group demonstration team (1958-1962), and a teacher and deviser in his own right, seeking assistance in collating a collection of her aunt’s dances. He replied offering, ‘to help in any way that I can’, listing Mrs MacNab’s dances which were then being danced at tattoos and the like. His knowledge of the dances was clearly prodigious. Dance descriptions were not written down by Mrs MacNab, as her teaching was from memory and her rough notes - an example of which can be seen on the webpage in section H01-H16. Her classes were expected to memorise them too and pass them on to other pupils. In a letter written in 1950s from Dr Hugh Thurston to Dr Tom Flett in England, describing Mrs MacNab’s dances he says, I think exaggerating to make a point, ‘Mrs M’s memory of the dances as collected is just about nil, moreover she occasionally alters them because of forgetfulness … the nearest one gets to a definitive version is what she teaches her senior girls’ class’. Presumably, recalling his earlier exchange of letters, Dr Thurston suggested to Mrs Sutorius that she involve dance collector and historian Dr Flett in this initiative. Everything it seemed was coming together. It is emphasised that Mrs MacNab, in the main,
