On 20th June 2015, Celtic Connections played for the Malta Emerald Society's first ever barn dance. those who have attended one of these events know that the most important person is the Caller, who calls out the moves for the dancers. The next most important person is the leader of the band! We do not have a caller on the Island, so we asked our dear friends from Worcestershire, Peter and Moira Gutteridge to come over and fulfil these roles for us. Peter and Moira have their own group called Dampiers Round, and we met them originally when we played in their village folk band every Monday, in Drakes Broughton in UK. Moira is an accomplished fiddler who spends a lot of time fiddling in Shetland and they both play regularly at the English Country Dance headquarters at Halsway Manor.
For this occasion, Moira and Peter compiled a tunebook with some tunes we were familiar with and some new ones, and matched them to the dances. During the two weeks of their stay we had wonderful fun learning the tunes and bringing them up to speed for the dancers was a challenge! However, we succeeded. You can find the tunes and the names of the dances by clicking on "Our Music" in the left menu bar.
On the night it was blowing a gale and only 90 of the expected 110 turned up but as you can see from the picture below a good time was had by all. Clothes pegs were very necessary to keep our music on the stands. Loose leaves were lost for ever!
We did not manage to get through all the dances.and as usual the hilarity came from the bits that caused confusion.
However, despite the high wind which lifted the tablecloths, it was a really good night. Roll on the next one.