My turn to dance in a show

It was my turn to perform on stage last night and today as my highland dance school put on its annual show. This was quite a thrill for me as the only time I’ve been on stage was in a school rock eisteddfod when I was 13 years old. I dance at a different school to Elizabeth so she got to sit in the audience and watch me for a change.

My class performed two dances: Broadswords and the Huntly fling. I practiced several times a day in the week leading up to it and kept making mistakes. When I focused on technique I’d forget the steps then when I focused on steps I’d get the technique wrong. It’s true what they say about teaching old dogs new tricks. Highland dance is hard.

Saturday night went smoothly enough and I got most things right. Sunday I messed up one of the steps in the swords. It could have been much worse: I could have accidentally kicked the swords, torpedoing one into the front row and severing the head of an unsuspecting member of the audience. Thankfully that didn’t happen and it was a minor mishap by comparison. Elizabeth was very comforting and reassured me by recalling all the times she’s made mistakes on stage or at competitions. It’s something to laugh about and fortunately the official video recording was on the Saturday night. Although my experience of watching myself dance is I look much better in my head than in reality.

I’m turning 50 this year and one thing I’ve learnt is we’re never too old to learn something new then get up on stage and perform. I’m very grateful to Pam Dignan Dance school for giving me this opportunity and I’m looking forward to next year’s show.

Here’s a photo of the kids sat in the audience. Daniel reluctantly came out to watch the show.

We all wore pink tshirts for the finale. Here I am wearing mine after the show.