The February Dance Party

It is sad to contemplate that I cannot do everything; it feels like defeat. 

Not having a violinist for the upcoming Eastertide Dance, I seriously pondered how many years (and how much therapy) it would take me to learn the violin myself. Apparently, with steady practice it would take 5 years. Having discovered this, I then looked up the price of violin lessons. I swiftly realized that it would be a lot more economical to use that money to hire violinists. That said, I still haven't found a violinist. 

"You don't need a violinist," says Benedict Ambrose. "A piano is accompaniment enough." 

There is another factor. In his fascinating essay "A Different Drummer," Michael Platt mourns how amplification moved music out of "the home and similar small settings" to "halls, clubs, and honkey-tonks."

"Instead of people who know each other playing for each other, now a few strangers could entertain a crowd they did not know, and most of whom did not know each other. This was a big loss in community," Platt writes. 

Thus, ideally, we shouldn't hire strangers for the sake of a specific instrument, but accept whatever instruments can be played by friends or acquaintances. And I was absolutely delighted, by the way, that one of the young men who goes to our TLM was available to accompany yesterday's waltzing practise with his electric piano. 

Incidentally, I may stop being the After-Mass Tea and Coffee Tea Lady on Waltzing Party Sundays. Even with help (and I am most grateful for the help), it is too much to plan the dance party, plan the waltz lesson, canvas for RSVPs, make biscuits, pack 6 bags of supplies, buy the supplies for the After-Mass Tea and Coffee, get a lift, go to Mass, set up the After-Mass Tea and Coffee, serve the After-Mass Tea and Coffee, advertise the Eastertide Dance, remove the After-Mass Tea and Coffee, help with the dishes, make a thermos of coffee for the Waltzing Party, turn off the hot water machine, check that the wheelchair-accessible door is shut, check the hall for crumbs, chase out the stragglers, lock the door, and then hurry down the street to the new hall to teach a dance lesson, my deceased ballet and piano teachers turning in their graves. 

That said, nobody but me drank the coffee, so I think we can dispense with hot drinks at the parties, at least until the autumn.

After a fair number of RSVPs and changed RSVPs, in the end there were 17 dancers, including me, in the lovely big hall. Our program consisted of a waltz lesson, a ceilidh lesson, and a swing-dancing lesson. I reviewed Asking a Lady to Dance, the Box Step, the Natural Turn and the Reverse Turn. Then our Ceilidh teacher taught the progressive (i.e. changing partners) Canadian Barn Dance and how to add a Figure-8 to the Dashing White Sergeant. At 3:30 PM we had a 20-minute pause for refreshments. Then our professional swing-dance teachers spoke to us about marrying dance to music, reviewed the Jitterbug and the Lindy Hop, and showed us how to put them together.

Winter nights are long but Spring comes early to Edinburgh. It was so nice to see light still streaming through the pointed windows of the hall. I was also very pleased that there were 9 men to 8 women. Apologies to the chaps, but I think it ideal to have one "extra" man at a dance whereas to have one man too few is a terrible social solecism and a crime against my fellow women.      

Splendidly, pound notes and the heavier British coins found their way into the donations box.  This is especially important now that I am planning to find a professional waltzing instructor, too. I am finding it difficult to be a good hostess and a good teacher at the same time. There is only so much I can make myself learn from YouTube, and there is always the risk of losing my head. Of course, I shall never, ever employ the tactics of my most memorable ballet teacher; she used to pinch our insufficiently tense buttocks with her long, sharp fingernails, and she bent my toes back so far toward my heel that---.

I'll spare you that detail!