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Enjoy this curated selection of theme-related dances for celebrations and holidays, or find a dance associated with a special calendar day, or EVEN your own birthday!
Photo: Joe Burn, Milky Way over Ardvreck Castle
May 10
Milky Way Viewing Season
The Milky Way
Other Scottish Country Dances for this Day
Today's Musings, History & Folklore
"Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising through the mellow shade,
Glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid."
~ Locksley Hall, Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)
Dancers, astronomers, and stargazers — the skies are clearing for dancing beneath the stars! This lively 40-bar jig for four couples by Ruary Laidlaw is a dancing tribute to our Milky Way galaxy, leading dancers through figures that evoke spirals, wheeling constellations, and the glittering sweep of the heavens themselves. The dance was a finalist in the SCDCC Dance Devisors Contest in 2018 and was later published in The Second Canberra Book of Scottish Country Dances by the Scottish Country Dance Club of Canberra.
Our Milky Way galaxy — whose familiar English name is often linked to the Greek myth in which the goddess Hera accidentally sprayed her milk across the night sky while feeding the infant Heracles — has inspired vivid names and legends across many cultures. In China, it is known as the “Silver River”; among the San peoples of the Kalahari, it has been called the “Backbone of the Night”; in Thailand, “The Way of the White Elephant”; and in Scottish Gaelic, Slighe Chlann Uisnich — “The Path of the Children of Uisneach” — recalling the tragic Celtic tale of Deirdre and the sons of Uisneach.
Even the famous Milky Way candy bar, introduced in 1923, ultimately takes its name from the galaxy — by way of a once-popular malted milk drink that shared the celestial title.
For those hoping to see the real thing overhead, one of Scotland’s finest locations for viewing the Milky Way is Galloway Forest Park. Designated a Dark Sky Park, it boasts some of the darkest skies in the United Kingdom and offers spectacular views of the galaxy arching across the heavens.
Until then, traverse the galaxy in jig form — no telescope required.🕺 💃 💙 🤍 💙 🌌 ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 🔭
The Milky Way
This dance was inspired by figures that reminded the devisor of the spiral arms of our galaxy.
The Milky Way has four main spiral arms: the Norma and Cygnus arm, Sagittarius, Scutum-Crux, and Perseus. Out Sun is located in a minor arm, or spur, named the Orion Spur. The galactic disk itself is about 100,000 light years across, and the bar at the center is estimated to be about 27,000 light years long.
The spiral arms are due to the rotation of the galaxy, or rather, the rotation of matter inside the galactic disk around the center.
The Milky Way contains over 200 billion stars, and enough dust and gas to make billions more. More than half the stars found in the Milky Way are older than our 4.5 billion year old sun.
And for more fascinating facts about our own Milky Way, click the artist's rendition (Illustration Credit: R. Hurt (SSC), JPL-Caltech, NASA) of the Milky Way as a barred spiral galaxy which is a shape more recently determined.
Click the dance cribs or description below to link to a printable version of the dance!
