Scottish dance society

The Aberdeen University Scottish Dance society was one of several societies I joined this September and the only one I have fully become involved with. Dance practice is definitely a highlight of my week.

We generally meet every Wednesday evening for two hours. We learn new dances every week, some more successfully than others. It's a beginners class so all the basics are covered and the expectations bar is set low! We have ceilidhs, themed nights, go to dances with other unis and have social events like meals out and drinks in the pub after class.

Christmas Meal at Zizzi

Why I love Scottish dance:

• It's great exercise - I can often feel my legs the next day after two or more hours of dancing. But it's fun exercise, the kind you don't really notice.

• Anyone can do it - I'm pretty useless when it comes to dancing but Scottish country and ceilidh dancing don't call for amazing rhythm, flexibility or elegance.

• It's sociable - you still get that feeling of being part of a team but it isn't competitive and it doesn't really matter how good you are as long as everyone has fun.

• Meet lots of people - I have met lovely people both in the Aberdeen society and people from other university dance societies when we travel round Scotland for dances

• It's fun! - there is always lots of smiles, lots of laughter and plenty of mistakes.

This term we travelled to two big dances: the Edinburgh "beginners" dance and the Glasgow SUSCDF dance. The Edinburgh dance was our first dance and, although it was a beginners programme, many dances still seemed pretty hard, especially as there were twenty two of them, mostly only learnt once in class. The first half of the dance was seriously stressful. They call each dance and there's one walk through but in the first half there was only one dance I felt confident in (Teddy-bear's Picnic). However, the second half seemed a lot easier and I had so much fun that it cancelled out the stress of the first half twice over. Physically exhausting but made it into an incredible night. The dance had a very friendly vibe, nobody seemed to mind when I didn't have a clue what I was doing and there was lots of mixing between universities.

A couple of weeks after Edinburgh was the Scottish Universities Scottish Country Dance Festival, hosted by Glasgow. For this event each university (Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh, St Andrews and Dundee) performed a demonstration dance. We therefore spent the three weeks leading up to it rehearsing our dem (which actually turned out pretty great in my opinion!). It was also super nice to watch the other demonstrations as they were all so different. Edinburgh's was my favourite with a routine to I'm Gonna Be by The Proclaimers. Glasgow's was also set to pop music whereas the rest were to more traditional folk.

Having learnt from Edinburgh, we did our homework before SUSCDF and spent the evenings prior to the night watching and rehearsing the dances. It paid off - we were not the least competent in the room this time! Glasgow couldn't live up to Edinburgh (not least because of the disappointing food) but it was still an awesome night, one highlight being that we were able to impress our dance teacher with the diamond poussette we'd learnt from youtube videos! The lovely thing about SUSCDF was that through training for the dem and travelling three and a half hours each way in a minibus together, we definitely bonded as a group and it was a great chance to get to know everyone better.

I'm so happy to have met such a wonderful group of people and I'm sad that several people are now leaving. Looking forward to all that next semester brings and the many dances that have already been scheduled. Will miss it over the holidays xxx

#scottishdance #AUSDS #university #scotland