Adventures Growing Up in Highland Dance
by Pat Beaven
reprinted from Highland Dancer Magazine
Strange to think that I owe all my adventures – indeed my whole career in Highland dance - to a common orthopaedic complaint. Flat feet! That was the diagnosis when I was nine years old; doctors advised my parents that dance classes might help correct the condition or at least alleviate the symptoms. A Scottish ancestral connection, plus the fact that my father had been involved for years with the Black Watch, made Highland dance a natural choice. I can’t say I was too thrilled with this decision, as all my friends were going off to ballet classes, toting cute dance bags, and selling tickets to tutu-ed annual recitals.
Inquiries were made, however, and within weeks I was being driven Saturday mornings to a class that took place in the kindergarten room of a local public school. The class was an hour long: for fifty-five minutes I would play in the sand table while the teacher put the group of more advanced students through their paces, then I would be called over for the last five minutes, shown a step, and told “Try to remember that for next week”. After too many weeks of asking what I had done at dance class, and getting a guilelessly truthful answer, my mother decided to seek out another teacher. Soon after, I became a student at the Carrie Biggers School of Dance. Miss Biggers, a formidable name on the scene in Montreal in the sixties, taught in the basement of her home. I’ll never forget descending that narrow stairway for the first time, nor my first glimpse of what I perceived as a very glamorous new world. Large mirrors bordered two sides of the L-shaped space, with low wooden benches around the perimeter of the room, but most enchanting to me were the walls … walls crammed from floor to ceiling with old dance photos of my teacher at various ages and stages, in Scotland as well as in Canada, framed newspaper clippings, certificates, medals, and memorabilia that I never tired of gazing at! And the floor, painted a stunningly vibrant blue, made a dramatic first impression. I now know the surface was painted to seal it in an attempt to cut down on the grainy dust inevitable with a cement floor, and that the colour was common in home basement renos, but I grew up in apartments and to me it simply seemed like a bold and magical touch! It meant that the soles of my ghillies were forever blue, and my routine on returning home from class was to head straight for the laundry basket, then the shower, as repeated shedding round-the-leg left tights and calves the same shade of indigo. (The foolhardiness of doing such a vigorously aerobic dance, of smashing the body’s weight through the ball of the foot constantly into the unforgiving cement, the potential for injury to feet, ankles, knees, and back never bothered anyone, it seems, or became an issue, until decades later.)
Classes continued, soon upped to twice weekly, and my teacher told my parents I was ready to take part in my first competition. This meant, of course, that I had to have a kilt. A whole costume wasn’t necessary right away, as novices were permitted to compete in kilt and white blouse. But even a kilt did not fit easily into the family budget – it was expensive, having to be ordered at that time by catalogue from Scotland. A solution was found: a neighbour who sewed offered to make me a kilt. Now Mrs. Celakowski had never attempted a project of this kind before, but studied how my father’s Black Watch kilt was put together, and spent many evenings after her own children were in bed painstakingly pleating the McLeod fabric. At last it was finished, in time for my first competition a week later. On the sidelines on that big day, Miss Biggers was talking to my parents, and in the course of checking me over to admire the new kilt, noticed that something didn’t look “quite right”. She had me turn around several times, and finally figured out that the pattern of the tartan didn’t match up in the back pleated section. (Today I realize my kilt had simply been pleated to the stripe – as my father’s regimental kilt had been – rather than to the sett.) This wasn’t okay, we were advised, and now my mother had to break the news to our neighbour, who I’m sure hoped she had seen the end of that particular garment. But rising to the challenge, she gamely took apart and re-pleated the kilt … and I wore it with pride for almost two years, after which it was “inherited” in turn by each of two younger siblings who had also started dancing by that time.
From local competitions to large Highland Gatherings throughout the summer, from novice class to championships, from being more interested in dashing away to buy cotton candy and coca-cola between events at the Caledonian Games to scrupulously studying the steps, style, and aggregate-point accumulations of dance-rivals at Maxville … competing brought out, at various times, the best and worst in me. But always, it made me push and practice and pursue the next challenge, which had implications far beyond the world of pas de basques and high cuts and who would be awarded the most judges’ points for 3-slow-and-1- quick. Today, I see parents busy videotaping their offspring on stage as they compete, or using digital cameras to record the events; I treasure the one black and white photograph I have taken at a Highland games. I’m on stage, dancing alongside my sister Pam, fourth step of the Fling, with one of my hose fallen down around mid-calf. I’m squinting – I don’t know if it’s from the sun’s glare or from concentration – but it captures it all for me: I’m so glad I have that photo.
Every summer, Sadie Simpson came to Montreal – one of her stops as she travelled across the country conducting yearly examinations for the British Association of Teachers of Dancing. Springtime classes concentrated on preparing students for the exams, each year progressing through the grades: 1, 2, 3, bronze, silver, gold, British Medallion, British Award, etc. Half an hour or so after Miss Simpson had seen you dance, up from the basement studio came her nervously-awaited written remarks about your performance and progress. Though the examiner saw literally hundreds of dancers during the day, comment cards were always sprinkled with friendly, personal compliments and reminders: “Nice elevation in the Fling, dear” and “Pat, watch your arms in the 2nd step”. Then about a month later, certificates arrived by post from London headquarters, stamped with “Pass”, “Pass Plus”, or if you had really outdone yourself, “Highly Commended”!
It wasn’t all competitions and exams, though. Highland dance was also entertainment. As solo artists, duets, and in group shows, we were dispatched to perform at dinners, fundraisers, festivals, weddings, hospitals, store openings, multicultural events, military functions, you name it! A pecking order developed, naturally, with the best dancers getting the plum assignments. “Dancing out”, as we called it, became the most exciting part of the equation for me, with the opportunity to perform well worth the extra hours of practice required and the teenage parties that had to be given up. I have dozens of memories that make me smile: quirky misadventures! the thrill and danger of live performance! Early in my “career” - I guess I was about twelve at the time - I recall being hired to entertain at a seniors’ home. My mother accompanied me to the venue, where a piper was to meet us. We waited and waited; no piper showed. We waited some more, made a couple of phone calls, but still no piper. (Remember this was before the era of tapes and CDs. I used a 331/3 RPM record in class and for practice at home – not so easy to tuck into a dance bag; there’s no reason for a dancer today to be without her own music!) Finally it was decided I would have to go on in the next five minutes, as bedtime came early for the residents, and soon I’d lose my audience. Could I dance without music? The idea seemed ridiculous, I couldn’t see how that would work, and said no. What to do? “Lucy plays the piano – she’s still awake”, one of the attendants volunteered. So in short order, Lucy was summoned and introduced to me as my accompanist. All I had to do then was hum my “song” to her, she was sure she could pick it up… and that’s the only time I’m aware of the Sword Dance being done to a honky-tonk piano arrangement! Another time I was to perform at a function for the wives of a well-known fraternal order. I was met at the door, and told that the women would be having a meeting first, followed by the dinner at which I would dance. As the meeting was “closed” (which I now understand means “top secret” or “for members only”), I was asked to wait in another room, from which someone would come and get me at showtime. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t the cramped janitor’s supply closet I was ushered into! Complete with mops, brooms, shelves filled with rags and cleaning solutions – the only accommodation an upturned pail to sit on - this was home for the next two hours. And when I was sent for, I was shown into the ballroom, where someone proudly informed me that carpet had been laid down especially for me to dance on. Shag carpet, no less, which made dancing the Sheann Truibhas a whole new experience! I can remember many Saturday mornings spent learning a new choreography totally invented by my teacher right then and there – a combination of her expertise and imagination and the improvisational skirmishes of the four senior dancers trying to help interpret her vision. That same evening we would perform the results at a banquet or other important function. It was difficult at times to suppress a giggle as we heard the number being introduced over the microphone, always with some wonderfully evocative, steeped-in-history kind of name like “Dorrie MacNab’s Flourish” or “The Grey Plaid of Badenoch”… always followed by “never before performed on this side of the Atlantic.” Not a word of a lie, of course, as it had only been made up hours earlier!
Growing up in Highland dance was empowering: it made me strong physically and emotionally, gave me goals, nurtured confidence and a love of performing, brought recognition, taught me discipline and perseverance, and provided a tangible connection to my heritage. Over the years Highland dance became more than what I did, it became who I was, and I wouldn’t change a minute of it – or trade the memories I have – for anything in the world!