Scottish Dance Stories

by Tom Halpenny

Dancers are typically challenged to remember the choreography of dances in a dance program. When I studied the program of eight Scottish dances for the July Scottish Dancing - Brief Only class, I tested my ability to memorize the choreographies. I already had strong memories for four of the dances because I had danced them before and had formed emotional memories.

According to the metalearning book Limitless, association is the key to memory and to all of learning. In order to learn any new piece of information, it must be associated with something you already know. The more you know, the easier it is to make associations.

We are really good at recalling places because, as hunter-gatherers, we needed to remember where things were. There are two methods to memorize a Scottish dance choreography. The direct method is to imagine dancers traveling the paths to places in the set. The other method is to associate the dance formations with places in a story.

I was challenged to imagine a story for Sugar Candie, so I viewed the video and diagram in order to imagine traveling the paths. The other three dances, Granville Market, The Lea Rig and The Duke of Atholl's Reel, inspired stories that form strong memories.

The tables show the stories I devised for the formations. My stories illustrate the value of already knowing something, by recalling parts of other dances I know:
The Reel of the Royal Scots and The Deil amang the Tailors.

Imagining the rhythmic music together with moving along the path strengthens memory. It would be interesting to test whether specific tunes trigger path memories. For example, the energetic music for Da Rain Dancin' evokes path memory: "1s shoot down below 3s, cast up round 3s to second place own side, 2s+1s+3s set & cross RH ..."

References:
Scottish Country Dancing Memory Skill
The Dancing Brain