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THOSE who remember the 1960,
British film, Tunes of Glory, about top-ranking, regimental rivalry in a
Scottish infantry barracks, will recall a sub-plot that dealt with how
officers, and, presumably, gentlemen, should comport themselves when
engaging in Scottish country dancing.
One lieutenant-colonel, played
by John Mills, saw the activity as vigorous but refined, a bit like a
hyper-active saraband; while another, portrayed by Alec Guinness, believed
such dancing should ideally resemble a cross between a rugby scrum and
all-in wrestling set to music.
The film never really got to
grips with the problem, but one was left with the suspicion that guests at
the officers’ mess parties would be in for a traumatic time, with females
being hurtled like projectiles across the floor or, if convenient, through
open windows and expected to pick themselves up and return to the fray
with pleasant enthusiasm.
Males would be forgiven if
they displayed more vigour than dancing skill and directed their partners
using holds ranging from the cross-press to the half or full Nelson.
Such a clash of attitudes raises the question: Is Scottish country dancing
a brisk social activity or one of the martial arts? In my experience, an
over-vigorous rendition of the reel, The Highland Light Infantry’s
Farewell to Barlinnie, can constitute a hazard, if not to life, at least
to limb and I believe a too-convulsive interpretation of the Madeleine
Smith jig followed by the Strathspey, The Not-Proven Verdict, could create
a dancing minefield that might require special insurance cover.
APART
from some dancers behaving as if they were defending Rorke’s Drift in the
Zulu wars, highly-polished floors can sometimes make many behave as if
competing in ice-skating championships, performing inadvertent double
axels or triple salchows.
It is easy to suffer body
bruises and contusions to one’s dignity in such a hectic, hilarious and -
in my experience - highly-enjoyable activity.
Alas, it brought no pleasure
to Mrs Marney Waddell, of Innerleithen, Peeblesshire, who broke her arm
when she fell while dancing during the Peeblesshire Agricultural Society’s
annual ball at Peebles Hydro Hotel on 26 January, 2001.
Her
£30,000 damages claim that the hotel, which disputed liability, should
have taken reasonable care not to polish the wooden floor so much that it
was dangerous and that the hotel should have prevented guests from using
it in that state, was rejected by Judge Gordon Coutts, QC, at the Court of
Session last week.
Mr Coutts said that a degree of slipperiness was to
be found on a dance floor. He had found no undue slipperiness and,
accordingly, no significant danger on the floor.
The
proposal, that persons could be prevented from falling at a dance,
particularly when Scottish country dancing was involved, was absurd.
I
regret that Mrs Waddell found herself painfully out of step and I must say
that, in attempting fearsome reels, I have joined other limping
participants who, after the final, exhausting note had sounded, resembled
a Matthew Brady photograph of Confederate walking wounded after the Battle
of Gettysburg.
MRS WADDELL fell while dancing The Dashing White
Sergeant, a movement that, in my perspiring and palpitating experience,
can seem to go on for ever, and sometimes resembles the surge and thunder
of the sans culottes storming the Bastille.
At the end of it, and other
popular reels like The Duke of Cumberland’s Fancy, and modern dances such
as the jig, The Deil’s Awa Wi Devolution, and the rant, The Scottish
Taxpayer, I have seen participants, who if they had been exhibited at
Crufts, could have been classed as "best of breed", slumped breathless,
the males with faces like over-ripe nectarines and the females flushed
with fatigue, with eyes that had glimpsed eternity.
I once
fell like a wind-up toy after being swung by a female built on the lines
of a Sumo wrestler and behaving like a Viking in drink, but I admit that
most of the Scottish country dances into which I have hazarded myself have
been ones of rhythmic restraint and good manners, with hardly an eldritch
screech heard to pierce the night’s dull ear.
Whichever dancing philosophy -
sedateness or boisterousness - has the truer wisdom, I now regard the
activity as a spectator sport.
For me, in my non-dancing
years, the jig is up. |
