DANCING

Please email any status changes to:  CUSGAdance@gmail.com

CUSGA Bursary & Scholarships CUSGA is pleased to offer Scholarships and Bursaries to competitors to help them in the pursuit of their education and highland arts.

HISTORY

Traditionally, highland dances were the dances of warriors, originated by men and danced by men. The Highlanders of Scotland have always been held in high esteem for their great physical strength and agility.

These assets are reflected in the Highland dances. Calgary’s Highland Games have over 300 competitors in Highland Dance, and we are fortunate to be in the midst of one of the epicentres of Highland dance in the world. As a spectator you will enjoy some of the finest dancing on offer from competitors who succeed both nationally and internationally.

Nowadays, Highland dancing, which can be seen at nearly every modern day Highland games event, is a highly competitive and technical dance form which requires many hours of practice and training over a period of many years to perfect. In terms of its technical requirements and the training required for its performance, Highland dancing has much in common with ballet. It takes a massive amount of stamina and arm/leg strength, no matter how old the dancer is (and indeed increasingly so as they reach the most elite levels).

In Highland dancing, the dancers dance on the balls of the feet. You’ll notice that they land without ever touching their heels to the ground, in contrast to, say, ballet. The highland dances are carefully laid out in extremely technical detail by the Scottish Official Board of Highland Dancing, and dancers competing against each other are held to the standards set by this organization by the judges. It is a deeply technical and intensely demanding form of dance.

Highland dancing should not be confused with Scottish country dancing which is both a social dance (that is, a dance which is danced with a partner or partners) like ballroom dancing, and a formation dance (that is, a dance in which an important element is the pattern of group movement about the dance floor) like square dance.

Some Highland dances do derive from traditional social dances, however. An example is the Highland Reel, also known as the Foursome Reel, in which groups of four dancers alternate between solo steps facing one another and a figure-of-eight style with intertwining progressive movement. Even so, in competitions, the Highland Reel dancers are judged individually. Most Highland Fling dances are done solo.