The Glasgow Highlanders
The Glasgow Highlanders is a Scottish Country Dance. It was published by Walter F. Gillies in about 1885 in Manual of Dancing, or a Companion to the Ballroom. It was interpreted by RSCDS in 1925 and published in RSCDS Book 2. It is S8×32 2C/4C, a proper Duple Minor dance. St32.
Please see SCDDB for a discussion of the provenance of this dance.
On a second chord before the dance begins, the first lady moves into the second man's place. The second man into the second lady's place, and the second lady into the first lady's place. This is like a counter-clockwise becket dance with everyone standing on the same side of the set as his/her partner (ladies on their partner's right).
At the end of the first iteration (bars 31-32), during the reel, the first lady moves into the third man's place. The third man into the third lady's place and the third lady into where you'd expect the first lady to be (the original place of the second lady).
The step suggest for the setting is Forward on right, hop; back on left, hop; step behind with right, step left, right and hop.
The animation plays at 120 counts per minute normally, but the first time through the set the dance will often be slowed down so people can learn the moves more readily. Men are drawn as rectangles, women as ellipses. Each couple is drawn in its own color, however the border of each dancer indicates what role they currently play so the border color may change each time through the minor set.
An online description of the dance may be found here.
| 1-8 | Face neighbor (who is across the set) and rights and lefts |
| 9-12 | M2 dances into the middle, and takes L2 in his left hand and L1 in his right, line of three lead down, followed by M1; at bottom ladies turn toward M2, move up and take M1's hands while men turn right about |
| 13-16 | Line of three lead up, M2 following, ending at top with ladies outside facing in, men between them facing partners |
| 17-24 | Set to partner for eight bars (but a little different from normal strathspey setting) |
| 25-32 | Pass partner right to start a reel of four across, 1s end below 2s |
| 33-40 | Pass partner right to start a reel of four across, M1 ends in M2's place, L1 below him on men's line, and couple below move too |
If you find what you believe to be a mistake in this animation, please leave a comment on youtube explaining what you believe to be wrong. If I agree with you I shall do my best to fix it.
If you wish to link to this animation please see my comments on the perils of youtube. You may freely link to this page, of course, and that should have no problems, but use one of my redirects when linking to the youtube video itself:
https://www.upadouble.info/redirect.php?id=TheGlasgowHighlanders
The dance is out of copyright in the US, but I'm not sure of other jurisdictions. The interpretation is out of copyright in the US, but I'm not sure of other jurisdictions. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2023 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This website is copyright © 2021,2022,2023,2024 by George W. Williams V
My work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Most of the dances have more restrictive licensing, see my notes on copyright, the individual dance pages should mention when some rights are waived.