Skip to main content

Scottish Champs 2013

Oh Lord I found this was still in the draft folder - apologies - in retrospect it was quite perceptive.  But this was mostly written five months ago. SN April 2014

So imagine it's last November.......


Last year I posed the question about how the English regions might respond to the excellence happening in Scottish and Welsh dance competitions.  The answer in the case of the Midlands champs is not much - or at least not enough in terms of promotion.  There is a glimmer of hope in the proposal for a Northern (England) dance championships - I look forward to the realisation of the idea but would warn the organisers that it has taken four extraordinary people to get Scotland and Wales to their levels of excellence.

The team that look after the Scottish Championships are many - front of house, design and production of prizes and medals, a tried and tested set of DJs and a trusted group of judges who represent the best - with Scottish judges in the minority.  The team effort extends to the teams of competitive dancers and their supports: South Wales, Essex, Yorkshire, Scottish groupings and beyond.

In Wales something similar has found a different but winning formula.  Both events keep on giving

I'm an unrepentant and unapologetic champion of most dancing in Scotland and I think with good reason: its a special place where dancing holds a different place in the social structure.  People have a different attitude to dance and don't need to prove themselves through competition.  That they chose to do competition is delightful - especially a competition for charity.  The metropolitan bias of English dancing is uninformed and unrewarding, especially at the moment - the regions need to take a greeter hold.  Scotland and Wales are the places to go for good dancing - and not I'm sorry to say, England aside from a few exceptions.

So despite the police road block, the police escort, late arrival at the APP, and assorted traumas associated with dance competitions in general - I had a great time.  The gathering of dancers for the tea dance and thereafter for Sunday Roast in the local Wetherspoons was perhaps best of all - chance to chat to old friends and make new ones.  Breaking bread together still brings dancers closer together than dancing :-)

Can't wait for the next one.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dance Season No 12: Routes to madness

Ceroc Jamfest at Camber Sands and Ceroc Scorch at Southport. This is a blog post which mostly is grumpy about music and enthusing about music.  If you think I'm wrong that's fine: I'm often wrong. Please use the comments block below to say why. I will delete anything that is offensive to named individuals. There's a lot of good in weekenders - there are many good jive weekenders, there are some good WCS weekenders - they all far far away, if there was enough decent music there would undoubtedly be some good Tango weekenders and who knows what line dancers and swing dancers and Morris dancers get up to at the weekend meets. This blog is about music - it's not about DJs per se - it's what they play and why they play it when they play it.  For me the music at Southport was mostly terrific (but not everyone I've spoken to thinks that), whereas at Camber it was mostly horrific.  I offer no solutions, I'm no expert - there may be good reasons for the set...
2 comments
Read more

Welsh Champs 2015

I rarely post on this blog nowadays - nothing much changes in dancing, but I'm moved to write on this topic because something very important happened this weekend. Welsh Champs has expanded since it's early days and is now as much a test of endurance and ingenuity as it is pure dancing.  Virtually everyone to whom I spoke was thrilled but exhausted by the end of a day which finished at 1am.  The stakes were high though as competition goes there was a great deal of camaraderie.  These factors heightened the drama of last Saturday night and as a result dancing competitions just became a bit more grown up. They do say you find out what people are really like under pressure and in adversity. And so it was at this Championship where the judges started tentatively but finished vigorously arguing for more discipline from the competitors.  Video's were reviewed and some competitors were ruled out for transgressions.  The results came and one team was relegated...
Post a Comment
Read more

From Russia with Love

First posted 2006 A quick plug for a marvellous jiving track - Count Basie and his Orchestra playing "From Russia with Love" - big bold brass and nice solos in-between but a lovely tempo to dance to. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Basie-Meets-Bond-Count/dp/B0000647M1/ref=sr_1_1/026-1937011-5198054?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1182429592&sr=8-1
Post a Comment
Read more