Cherry Blossom Strathspey
Scottish Country Dance Instruction
Cherry Blossom Strathspey 40 Bar Strathspey 4 Couple Square Set. Gábor Turi, 2008.1-8 Ladies advance and retire twice, join and raise up hands in the middle like trees and release slowly while retiring (making an arch as long as it is comfortable) while men stand still 2 bars and advance (through the releasing arches) and retire like the ladies before and wait 2 bars again.
9-12 All four couples dance Highland Schottische to partner
13-16 All four couples turn with right hands one and a half times, men finish facing out
17-24 All four couples dance interlocking reels of four across the set (ladies start immediately with a quick half left hands across in the middle - see Figure One)
25-32 All four couples dance half "Wasabi" reel
33-36 All four couples turn partner with both hands one and a half times and open up to form a circle at the end
37-40 All four couples circle one place to the left and all cast on the spot left about to finish in their new positions ready to start again from the beginning
Repeat the dance three times more until all couples are back to original places.
(Dance crib compiled by the deviser, Gábor Turi, 2008)
Dance Notes
Figure One - Bars 17-18
Wasabi reel: almost like a Schiehallion reel but ladies lead and men follow their partners.
Dance Instruction Videos
Cherry Blossom Strathspey - Scottish Country Dancing Instruction VideoDance Information
Devised by Gábor Turi as a gift to Atsuko Clement who organised a superb Cherry Blossom Dancing Tour to Japan in 2008.The figure "Wasabi" Reel was named at the time of the first presentation of the dance at a parking lot of a wasabi plantation.
Tune: Any suitable 4x40 bar Strathspey.
(Dance information from A Reel Goulash 1, Budapest Book of Scottish Country Dances (2011), reproduced here with kind permission)
A cherry blossom is a flower of many trees of genus Prunus. The most well-known species is the Japanese cherry, Prunus serrulata, which is commonly called sakura.
Cherry blossom trees are widely distributed, especially in the temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere including Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Mainland China, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Myanmar, Thailand and West Siberia.
The cherry blossom is considered the national flower of Japan (along with the chrysanthemum).
Cherry Blossom - Information Video
Cherry Blossoms - Sakura - Sugimura Park Hashimoto
Published in http://bstk.hu/en.htm
Dance information licensed under this Creative Commons Licence 3.0.
Text from this original Cherry Blossom article on Wikipedia.
Image copyright http://bstk.hu/en.htm, reproduced here with kind permission.
Image copyright Yae Yamamoto Creative Commons Licence 4.0, via Wikipedia.
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