RSCDS Brighton Branch
Scottish Dance References
* Scottish dance groups locally in Brighton and Hove, Sussex and south-east England
* about dances and dancing
* dance supplies
* Community and activity sites for Brighton, Hove and Sussex
Images representing the linked sites are taken from the linked site themselves.
Scottish dance groups in Brighton and Hove, Sussex and South-East England
Sussex Association of Scottish Societies (SASS) co-ordinates the calendar of Scottish dance events for its member clubs and runs dances to raise money for local charity.
Ashdown Scottish Country Dance Club meets Thursday 8-10pm at the Jarvis Brook Memorial Hall from late September to late June.
Brighton and Hove SCD Club meets Thursday 7:45-10pm and organise Saturday dances in October and December
Bognor Regis SCD Club
As well as evening and afternoon dances, Bognor run a day-school once a year.
Crawley SCD Club
meet on Thursday evenings, September to May for social Scottish country dancing.
Eastbourne Scottish Country Dancing meet Wednesdays - contact for more information.
Horsham SCD Club
meet Mondays September to May.
Mid-Sussex Scottish Country Dancers meet Tuesdays 7.45 and run four Saturday dances a year.
Sussex Folk Association, SusFA provide an excellent classified directory of various folk dance clubs, organisations and events in Sussex including a section on Scottish country and highland dance.
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Beyond Sussex we have ...
Croydon and District Branch RSCDS, originally the East Surrey - West Kent Branch, run classes on Fridays 7:30-10.
RSCDS London Branch
Run classes on Tuesday for people 20-40 and three classes on Wednesdays. They also manage a list of dances in south-east England - the South East Dance Diary.
RSCDS Herts and Borders
a new branch founded in 2020, includes the old South East Herts Scottish Dance Society.
MacLennan Scottish Group, based in London, are available to perform demonstrations of Scottish dance and highland dance such as the sword dance.
The thriving Southsea Reel Club based in Portsmouth has no web presence. Contact Kathy on 023 9245 0265
RSCDS Royal Tunbridge Wells Branch run a beginners' class Tuesdays 7:30-10 and an advanced class Thursdays 8-10.
SERTA South-East Region Teachers' Association
SERTA supports teachers and the teaching of Scottish country dancing with courses and workshops.
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About Dances and Dancing
Royal Scottish Country Dancing Society, RSCDS
RSCDS "headquarters" co-ordinates the Spribng Fling for young people and the Summer Schools in Scotland. On its web site you will find links to all RSCDS branches and affiliated clubs around the world.
The Strathspey Server is a excellent resource run by Anselm Lingnau sharing oodles of information about Scottish country dancing such as:
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SCDDB Scottish country dance database's comprehensive information on around
21,000 dances with cribs, diagrams and videos, plus lists of
publications,
albums/CDs,
recordings and tunes
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the mailing list is a forum for discussing Scottish country dancing, be it dances, technique, history, learning or teaching, dance music ...
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Strathspey archive where you can search for earlier conversations in the mailing list.
The Scottish Dancing Dictionary By Reuben Freemantle And Laurence Abbott is easy to understand, comprehensive, classified and illustrated, with over 4,000 dance instruction cribs and videos (try Polharrow Burn.b &npbs; It describes footwork, set structure, timing, hand positions, simple figures like casting complex figures like the espagnole or schiehallion reels, and dance types.
The United Kingdom Alliance of Professional Teachers of Dancing and Kindred Arts provides support for our highland teacher and provides graded medal tests (and the medals themselves) for dancers.
Grand Chain provides a large number of references to information on country, highland and ceilidh dancing, music and bands. Maintained by Ian Brockbank in Edinburgh.
RSCDS International Branch is open to anyone interested in Scottish Country Dancing. Their web site includes Campbell's Lists and find out which dances are currently popular in SCD programmes across the world. What dance appears most frequently in UK programmes? What are the most popular dances to start and finish a programme?
Celtic Circle lists classes and social events across continental Europe and is maintained by Annette and Volker Wörtmann and Peter Wöll, It is also available as a printed newsletter.
YouTube - selection of Scottish country dance videos yes YouTube has many videos and Janet Elizabeth has created a YouTube playlist of Scottish country dance videos and another playlist of highland dance videos. The videos listed have been created by people from all over the world. The quality is variable but some are really good.
Marucho's Animated Folk Dance GIFs is not a Scottish Dancing site, but the Animated Folk Dance Site by folk dance enthusiast Naohisa Hamada has these lovely gif images of a highland fling (left) and the country dance "Petronella" (right).
See Galleries 2, 1 and 5.
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Dance supplies
St Andrews Shoemakers, previously known as James Senior, sell specialist shoes, clothes and accessories for Scottish (and Irish) dancing. You can buy ghillies, pumps and brogues here online. The web site is fairly easy to use and there are many satisfied customers in the Brighton branch but prices have been rising.
John Kinloch Anderson in Edinburgh and London is a leading kiltmaker and supplier of all Highland dress accessories for men, women and children.
Arabesque is an online shop saying it sells James Senior shoes. It may be worth looking as their colour range is different from James Senior, but watch out for higher prices.
Scottish Dance Shoe Company of Wembley sell just one style of ghillie and one style of pump but their shoes are cheaper than James Senior. I have not tried their shoes.
Thistle Shoes make shoes and sell them online - boots, brogues and ghillies as well as shoes for highland and country dancing.
The RSCDS onlime shop for CDs and books and for a range of dance accessories like the silver kilt pins, greetings cards with the crown motif and RSCDS tartan by the metre.
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Community and activity web sites for Brighton and Hove and Sussex
This Activity Finder is provided by Brighton & Hove City Council in their Sport and Activity pages. The council encourages local people into physical activity by providing a directory of activity groups and sports groups.
escis is the East Sussex Community Information Service, maintained by East Sussex County Council.
WestSussex.Info is the West Sussex information service, telling you what's on and where.
Sussex Folk Association, SusFA provide an excellent classified directory of various folk dance clubs, organisations and events in Sussex including a section on Scottish country and highland dance.
The The Argus is Brighton's local daily newspaper with local weather, news reports and features.
Brighton & Hove City Council has a section on its web site with information on local transport and libraries, plus details of city-sponsored arts and cultural events.
Visit Brighton is the tourist board web site for hotels and tourist information.
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Scottish Country Dancing Holidays
Visit scottish-country-dancing-and-walking-holidays.com to find out about their range of dancing holidays for the coming year in places like Scarborough, Great Yarmouth, Eastbourne(!), Great Malvern, Symonds Yat and Weston-Super-Mare. Scottish Country Dancing Holidays has been recommended by one of our members who thoroughly enjoyed holidays with them in Scarborough in 2014 and Budapest in 2015.
