Step Dancing at the Gaelic College, Cape Breton

Gaelic College: Scottish Dance Exhibit in The Great Hall of the Clans in Cape Breton, NS (Canada).

After a night of Cape Breton step dancing at the Pipers’ Ceilidh yesterday, I was ready to dig into the Scottish history here and learn how to do a bit of step dancing myself. I made my way from Iona to St. Ann’s, where the wonderful Gaelic College of Celtic Arts and Crafts is located.   

While others spend a week at a time during the summer studying Gaelic language, song, music, dance and crafts, I had only one day. I actually only planned to stay a couple of hours here, not sure how expansive the exhibits would be.

Gaelic College

I went straight to the Great Hall of the Clans, where new interactive displays were set up. In no time I was hogging the Scottish dance section. Mary Janet MacDonald, a much-admired Cape Breton step dancer and master teacher (famous fiddler, Natalie MacMaster, is her niece), leads the charge with a few Jigs, Reels and Strathspeys. She gives you the basic steps of each type and goes over them a few times.

Gaelic College: Replica Milling Frolic in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia (Canada).

Surrounding the video are great little placards of the history of Scottish dance in Cape Breton. Gaelic Scotland was where this type of dancing emanated (although it’s said that it originally came from Ireland) in the 18th century.

In the early 19th century, dance came over to Nova Scotia, Canada when the Scots began immigrating here in large numbers. Today, Cape Breton is really the only place where traditional Scottish step dancing is still preserved, along with the Gaelic language (it was all but lost in Scotland).

After mastering a few of the basic steps, I ambled through the rest of the exhibits, from piping, fiddling and storytelling to a milling frolic and weaving. I also watched the first Gaelic film to be made in North America, The Wake of Calum MacLeod, featuring prominent Gaelic speaker and instructor (who MC’d last night’s pipers’ ceilidh), Angus MacLeod.

Gaelic College: Weaving Demonstration Exhibit in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia (Canada).

What I Liked:

• What an AMAZING space to learn about Scottish history and how it came to Cape Breton. The new interactive exhibits are a fabulous way to step into the culture and learn by reading, listening and participating.
• There are many opportunities to listen to Gaelic being spoken, which is a necessary way to understand the ways of life here.       
• There’s a whole exhibit room dedicated to Rev. Norman MacLeod, who was the original settler of the St. Ann’s Bay area. There are some really interesting artefacts and an easy-to-follow storyline of his journey to Cape Breton, settling here and then travelling with his many followers to Australia and finally Waipu, New Zealand. (I know, completely random.)
• My planned visit of a couple of hours easily turned into a full day.

Tags: Angus MacLeod, canada, Cape Breton, ceilidh, crafts, dance, fiddler, Gaelic College, Gaelic College of Celtic Arts and Crafts, Gaelic language, Gaelic Scotland, Great Hall of the Clans, Jigs, Mary Janet MacDonald, master teacher, milling frolic, music, Natalie MacMaster, Nova Scotia, piping, Reels, Rev. Norman MacLeod, Scottish dance, Scottish history, song, St. Ann’s, step dancing, storytelling, Strathspeys, The Wake of Calum MacLeod, traditional step dancing, weaving