Hi there!
Well, we made it! Yes, that´s the right formulation. WE made
it, because I wouldn´t be able to do it without them. What am I talking about?
Today my article won´t be about any set dance weekend or festival. First of
all, a bit of background.
You probably know I started set dancing a year ago (actually
I celebrated a year last week) and that I´ve become really addicted to it. I do
set dancing in our capital city Prague, as it is probably (and unfortunately)
the only place in our republic where you have a chance to do it. But
originally, I am not from Prague. My hometown is an industrial city in North
Bohemia called Ústí nad Labem. And because I really love sets and I am interested
in both teaching (not now, in some period of time) set dancing and convincing
the others how brilliant it is, I came up with an idea.
The idea that I would invite 7 people to our house for a
two-hour long set dance workshop. I
wanted to see if I am actually able to teach somebody sets. So I welcomed 7
people who haven´t heard about set dancing before. Well, to be honest, three of
them have – my mum, dad and my brother, as I keep talking about it everytime I
come back home from Prague – but the others haven´t.
I had two hours only to tell them basically what sets are,
something about the set dancing world, to play them a youtube video of the 2nd
figure of Clare Lancers, to explain them what „tops“ and „sides“ are, show them
the basic reel step, explain them what „house inside“, „swing“, „lead around“
and everything else is…and to teach them how to actually dance it.
All of them did a great job and I´m really, really, really
glad they came and they all stayed till the very end, when I filmed what
they´ve learnt. Once more – I am really proud of them. Here is the short video
as an evidence. Please note the speed of the music is slower (something about
70%) and don´t forget all of them experienced only 2 hours (!) of set dancing.
If you´d asked them yesterday „what is set dancing?“, they wouldn´t have had
ANY idea at all.
VIDEO HERE
I really enjoyed the evening and I hope it wasn´t my last opportunity to teach sets. :)
