The Dashing White Sergeant - RSCDS
Highland Reel
La Dance Florence
The Dashing White Sergeant - RSCDS or Highland Reel is a Scottish Country Dance. It was devised by D. Anderson in 1897 and published in Ball-Room and Solo Dance Guide, Dundee. It was interpreted by RSCDS in 1926 and published in RSCDS Book 3. It is R32 2T/2T Round the Room, a Three Face Three dance. R32. Someone thought this dance was Easy.
The tune was composed around 1820 by Sir Henry Rowley Bishop.
The RSCDS has trios alternately of 1 man and two women facing 1 woman and two men.
This is (intended to be) the official RSCDS version, according to The SCD Dictionary at Ceilidhs it is danced slightly differently, with right hand turns instead of two hand turns, a right shoulder reel (or chain) rather than a left, and in the final pass through the 2s make arches while the 1s dive through.
Note: this is completely different from the traditional contra dance with the same name.
The animation plays at 120 counts per minute normally, but the first time through the set the dance will often be slowed down so people can learn the moves more readily. Men are drawn as rectangles, women as ellipses. Each couple is drawn in its own color, however the border of each dancer indicates what role they currently play so the border color may change each time through the minor set.
An online description of the dance may be found here.
| 1-4 | Circle left six.... |
| 5-8 | ...and back to the right |
| 9-12 | Center dancers and the person on their right set and two hand turn |
| 13-16 | Center dancers and the person on their left set and two hand turn |
| 17-24 | Centers face right, and pass that person left to starts reels of three across |
| 25-28 | Face up or down, advance and retire |
| 29-32 | Pass through and on to the next |
If you find what you believe to be a mistake in this animation, please leave a comment on youtube explaining what you believe to be wrong. If I agree with you I shall do my best to fix it.
If you wish to link to this animation please see my comments on the perils of youtube. You may freely link to this page, of course, and that should have no problems, but use one of my redirects when linking to the youtube video itself:
https://www.upadouble.info/redirect.php?id=TheDashingWhiteSergeant-RSCDS
The dance is out of copyright in the US, but I'm not sure of other jurisdictions. The interpretation is out of copyright in the US, but I'm not sure of other jurisdictions. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2023 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This website is copyright © 2021,2022,2023,2024 by George W. Williams V
My work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Most of the dances have more restrictive licensing, see my notes on copyright, the individual dance pages should mention when some rights are waived.