To celebrate the South African public holiday known as Heritage Day on 24th September, Bergvliet Club held an open social evening to dance a program of dances devised by members of the club and other dancers in South Africa.
· “DAN the Dancing Rhino” a round-the-room dance by Heather Hodgson in support of anti-Rhino poaching.
· “The Road to McGregor” a Strathspey by Andrew Hodgson written for the dancing club in the small town of McGregor about 2 hours drive from Cape Town, to encourage them to include more Strathspeys on their annual party program!
· “The Pipes & Drums of the Cape Field Artillery” a Reel by Chris Alston written for events such as Caledonian evenings where the dancers can dance to the live music of the Pipe Band playing for them.
· “Nine Decades” a fun Reel by Alex Frew with 9 dancers in a 3x3 lines formation that he wrote to celebrate the RSCDS’s 90th anniversary.
· 2 dances by Barbara Braime who teaches the Somerset West club. Her Jig “Trip to the Drakensberg” from Book 38, and a Reel “Barbara’s Celebration”.
· Tom Kerr’s Strathspey “Cape Town Wedding” from Book 39 that is well-known to dancers world-wide.
· 2 dances by Irene van Maarseveen: the Jig “Joie de Vivre” and the Reel “A Touch of Tartan”, both of which have the DoSiDo movement in them.
· Roy Goldring’s Reel “Under African Skies” for which we used a track from the Vintage Goldring CD as played by Muriel Johnson & Keith Smith which is such lovely music.
· And last but not least, the new Jig “First Rain of Spring” by Wouter Joubert from Pretoria which has just been published in the new RSCDS Book 49, and we have really been enjoying dancing it in Cape Town.
Along with a few visitors from local clubs, we were also fortunate to have two visitors Mike & Eileen Brown from the UK who chose a good night to be visiting Cape Town and could join us for the evening’s dancing --- they danced at Bergvliet on a previous trip 3 years ago.
Everyone had a chance to socialize during the tea break and take in a sugar boost of energy for the second half with the local sweet-treat of a koeksister or the Scottish favourite of shortbread to help their cup of tea down.
Caireen Alston