Classes for everyone 7

Adult

17 April for 6 weeks

Advanced Beginners Tuesday 8.00 9.30 pm

Intermediate Plus Tuesday 8.00 9.30 pm

Advanced Thursday 8.00 9.30 pm

Murrayfield Parish Church, Ormidale Terrace, EH12 6EQ

Greenbank Parish Church (Upper Hall) Braidburn Terrace, EH10 6ES

Barclay Viewforth, 1 Wrights Houses, EH10 4HR

Murrayfield Parish Church, Ormidale Terrace, EH12 6EQ does it cost? RSCDS Edinburgh Members Non-Members

Yoshi Shibasaki Ewan Galloway/ Matthew Maclennan

Maggie McLeish Roddy Johnston

Rachel Shankland Seonaid Lynn

Read all about Andrew’s experience in our classes on Page 10

Class Descriptions If you are unsure which class is best for you please speak with any of our teachers or contact us for advice. Our teachers will be able to suggest which of our classes would be most suitable and give you the most enjoyment. We are happy for you to transfer between classes to find the right level for you.

Beginners

Open to all who have little or no experience of Scottish country dancing You will learn basic steps and simple formations including reels and some corner formations. By the end of the term you will be able to dance many Scottish country and ceilidh dances.

Advanced Beginners

Aimed at Dancers who have previously completed a Beginners class, or who are returning to dancing after a long period, and have limited footwork and knowledge of formations. You will want to improve your technique, learn more complex formations and increase your own ability.

Intermediate This energetic class is designed for dancers who are already familiar with core movements of Scottish country dancing and who have attended at least one Advanced Beginner class or been dancing regularly for over two years. You should be able to dance the steps and many of the key formations such as Allemande, Promenade and Ladies chain.

Advanced This class will improve your footwork, rhythm, phrasing and technique so that your dancing will be of a high standard; this will involve some constructive critiquing of your dancing.

Our Autumn term classes restart during the week commencing 25 September. Full details will be available on our website during August and in the next edition of Dancing Forth.

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Chinese New Year

In January, Edinburgh celebrated Chinese New Year, the year of the Rabbit, with spectacular celebrations across the city. On 22 January a colourful cultural display was staged at The Mound outside the Scottish National Gallery, organised by Edinburgh Chinese Arts Association, and presenting the Chinese Lion Dance, New Year Folk Dance, and Children’s Rabbit Dance. Chinese Calligraphy combined with a Han costume show highlighted Chinese New Year traditions.

Edinburgh Branch of the RSCDS was excited to be invited to share the celebrations with a Scottish country dance demonstration with a piper, moving into audience participation in a ceilidh to bring this Chinese-Scottish event to a joyful intercultural end.

Our new Chairman, David Watson, was kept busy distributing Lucky Red envelopes to the crowds. At Lunar New Year, it's a tradition to give the gift of a bright, beautiful red envelope (known as 紅包, hóngbāo) to your friends and family.

One of our dancers, Zoe Gardner, tells us more about the event:

‘I was very lucky to be asked to perform as one of the team of eight dancers at the Chinese New Year celebrations at the Mound: it was my first experience in dancing in front of an audience and I thoroughly enjoyed it. We danced ‘The Duke of Atholl’s Reel’ for a big crowd beside the National Gallery. Then we danced ‘The Gay Gordons’ and invited the public to dance with us: it was great to see so many wanting to try Scottish dancing.

This was the first time that I have been in Edinburgh for the Chinese New Year and it was a privilege to be there and witness the mix of cultures through dancing. There were a lot of people with very colourful costumes and it felt like a happy occasion which we were able to share with the Chinese community. It was very joyful and we were taught how to say ‘Happy New Year’ in Chinese (which I can now say but not write!).’

The Branch was delighted to take our part in this joint celebration, and share the traditions of our communities.

The Flying Scotsman

On Friday 24 February 1923 the world-famous steam locomotive, The Flying Scotsman, set off on its first journey. One hundred years later to the day, it arrived at Edinburgh Waverley station to celebrate its centenary. It was welcomed by the poet laureate, Simon Armitage, reading his new poem written especially for the event: The Making of Flying Scotsman which honours the famous engine that has become a well-loved icon of the golden age of rail travel.

To add to the celebrations, and to mark the shared centenaries in 2023 of both The Flying Scotsman and the RSCDS, Edinburgh Branch was invited to arrange for two sets of young dancers to perform ‘The Flying Scotsman’ on the platform by the train.

Children from South Morningside Primary School came along with their P5 teacher, Branch member and demonstration team dancer Katy Leiper. They added something very special to the event by performing beautifully, and proved outstanding ambassadors for Scottish country dance both in their dancing and in talking to the press.

Congratulations to Katy and her teams of young dancers! Following their success, we look forward to expanding our outreach work with Edinburgh schools, to inspire more young dancers.

Flying Scotsman images on Front cover and page 2 Chinese New Year images on back cover

Membership of RSCDS Edinburgh allows you to be part of a community of dancers both locally and worldwide and supports Scottish country dancing in Edinburgh and beyond.

Members benefit from a range of discounts and exclusive deals, as well as helping the continuation of the Scottish country dance tradition.

Membership fees for 2023—2024 will be due in the next few weeks and you will be able to pay online via our website

One of the country’s leading sports injury centres

Centre for Sport and Exercise

For all sports related injuries, including Scottish country dancing. Facilities open to all members of RSCDS Edinburgh Branch at reduced rates.

In December Edinburgh’s Scottish country dancing community lost one of its longstanding friends and inspirations. For those who had so recently seen Esmé Randall in excellent form, her enthusiasm for life hardly diminished by the passage of almost eighty-five years, her death, last December, came as a shock. The Church in Davidson’s Mains where her funeral service was held in January was filled to capacity by those who, travelling from far and wide and with many who had known her for more than half a century, came to pay their respects.

Esmé was a dancer, par excellence, a beautiful exponent of the art who also possessed the ability to pass on her mastery to others. She was a dancer by profession, commencing her training at The Scottish Ballet School in the 1950s and then qualifying as a teacher of ballet, highland dancing and tap-dancing. For many years she ran her own school. Esmé was a very able and graceful Scottish country dancer and she appeared, perhaps inevitably, on a number of occasions in ‘An Edinburgh Fancy’.

She took frequent part in the activities of the parent Society, dancing in the International Team when it went to St Jean de Luz in France’s Basque country, in 1964, and teaching regularly at the International Summer School. There she was chosen by Mrs Isobel ‘Tibbie’ Cramb (a leading expert on step dancing at the time) to demonstrate the ‘The Village Maid’, as a solo in the Younger Hall. For some years thereafter she assisted Mrs Cram in the teaching of Ladies ease, given her own training, with the demands of the soft, graceful, balletic style which such dances demand.

Many in the Edinburgh Branch will have encountered Esmé when she was teaching the Advanced or the Demonstration Class. She was an excellent teacher, appreciated by her students and by the musicians who worked alongside her. As teacher of the Demonstration Class, Esmé had an important role to play in the Branch’s shop window, ‘An Edinburgh Fancy Her professional training and active participation in dramatic productions ensured that she had a lot to offer. Dancers in Edinburgh and beyond welcome the fact that Atsuko Clement, who carries forward Esmé’s work in keeping alive Ladies’ Step Dances, persuaded her to allow dances she had created to pass into the public domain.

Esmé married Bill Randall in 1970, the two having previously encountered one another at Summer School. The wedding was a memorable occasion with a team of dancers and a piper performing an Eightsome Reel on the platform of Waverley Station as the newly-weds were about to depart on honeymoon. In due course Esmé and Bill’s marriage was blessed with the birth of a son, Nicholas, who, in an all too brief adult life, became a planning officer. Nicholas was an able flautist and formed part of a ceilidh band. It was a source of great pleasure to Esmé that she continued throughout her life to enjoy contact with Nicholas’ friends and their growing families.

Esmé had a wide range of interests apart from Scottish Country Dancing. For many years she was one of the leading players in the St Columba’s Dramatic Society, turning in memorable performances as Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde’ s The Importance of Being Earnest and the clairvoyant Madam Arcati in Noel Coward’ s Blithe Spirit. She was an incorrigible Francophile establishing and maintaining friendships in France and working regularly to keep her French up to the mark. She played the clarsach and was a poet, with a recent poem read at her funeral. Esmé, with the support of Bill, was a wonderful hostess, entertaining a large circle of friends on a regular basis – and frequently thinking to provide hospitality to those who were new arrivals or contending with a difficult situation in their life.

Esmé had many, many friends in Edinburgh – and beyond. She will be greatly missed and there will be few who will not retain a positive and inspiring memory of the exceptional lady she was.

Richard Austin and Atsuko Clement

Images from RSCDS Edinburgh Archive

Also, sadly missed is:

Patricia Waring, a long standing member dancing in our classes and was one of our trustees. Patricia enjoyed dancing with many local groups and will be remembered for the joy that Scottish country dancing always brought to her.