In Soundyngs’ travels this summer, a highland library shelf threw up a rather interesting book called A Sutherland Dance (1977), by Mats Melin. Inside its pages was an anthology of 20 dances popular in the county, suggesting choreography, tunes, and sketching out their social context.
Dance is a parallel study to music, and choreography is a technical area that runs beyond the normal reach of posts on this site; however, the connections between these arts is obvious – form, melodies, function, personnel, intersect, so research that helps to excavate this tradition is useful to the musicologist – and this particular researcher has done a lot of trowel-work.
So, who is Mats Melin?
Born in Sweden, but a long-time resident in Scotland and Ireland, Merlin is an emeritus lecturer in Ethnochoreoogy and Dance Studies at the University of Limerick, and has expertise in Irish, Scottish and Nova Scotian dance. He has been a ‘traditional dancer in residence’ in Shetland (1995-96), Sutherland (1996-98), Angus (1998-2002), and Perth and Kinross (2002-2003). His group ‘Dannsa’ has performed at folk festivals in the far north, and his press – the Lorg Press – has published local area studies on particular dance traditions. See, for example, Tak Yer Places, Photographs from the Scottish Traditions of Dance Trust Angus Collection, which is a wee book with some great photographs illustrating wonderfully the kinds of contexts in which dance could be experienced in Angus specifically, and the dancing teachers, musicians, and dancers involved in times past.
These local area studies are important because much ‘Scottish Country Dance’ literature has tended to concentrate on the consolidation of a “national” repertoire, albeit with instances connected with particular named people and places. The Royal Scottish Country Dance Society, for example, has a lot of fabulous learning and teaching material on its website, which give both Scots and others a good sense of what a Strathspey or Reel might be in its exact choreography (see below). Standard works such as J F and T M Flett’s Traditional Dancing in Scotland have also paid attention to the broad division between the mainland, the western isles and the northern isles of Orkney and Shetland, with introductory chapters that think about the broad social pattern of how dance was taught and where it was danced. Melin’s work prizes the local, and highlights where the lively instance can energise the wider practice.
Melin’s local studies frame dance as a practice that can be finely shaded by particular communities and their practitioners. He was an early member of the Scottish Traditions of Dance Trust in 1995, with support from the then Scottish Arts Council, with a remit to reach the parts of dance that the more familiar national repertoires might not normally reach. The research framework for the Trust is perhaps best illustrated in Melin’s book One with the Music – Cape Breton Step Dance Transmission and Tradition (2015), which looks at the continuation of Scots and Irish step dancing in North America. The Trust’s learners’ pack (see further resources) includes some interesting potted histories of the various bodies which curate different dance repertoires, and the competitive frameworks that promote standards in this area (Melin, 1997).
He has also looked beyond ‘country dancing’, including for example “percussive” or “step” dancing, a tradition that is still alive in Canada, but which is today quite rare in Scotland (see Dance Legacies of Scotland). Once common across the Highlands and Aberdeenshire, hard-shoe dances add the sound of the steps to the visual choreography in a way that arguably crosses directly into the realm of “music”.
Much work has been focussed on the role of particular individuals in dance, with story-telling part of the ethnographic method: see, for example, A Story to Every Dance (2018), available as a pdf from Melin’s website. Recent ongoing research is on Aberdeenshire dancing teachers.
If you are interested in how music and dance intersect, particularly in local contexts, check out Mats Melin’s website.
Further Resources
J F Flett and T M Flett, Traditional Dancing in Scotland (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964, paperback reissue 1985)
Mats Melin, The Scottish Traditions of Dance (Scottish Traditions of Dance Trust, 1997)
___ One With the Music: Cape Breton Step Dance Tradition and Transmission (Nimbus Publishing, 2015)
___ A Story to Every Dance: the role of lore in enhancing Scottish solo dance tradition (Lorg Press, 2018)
___ Tak Yer Places: Photographs from the Scottish Traditions of Dance Trust Angus Collection (Wm Culross & Son, n.d.)
Mats Melin and Jennifer Schoonover, Dance Legacies of Scotland: The True Glen Orchy Kick (Routledge, 2020)
Mats Melin’s Webpage and Lorg Press publishing
Royal Scottish Country Dance Society website