Tan Scottish

Scottish Country Dance Instruction

Tan Scottish (R8x32) 32 bar reel for three couples in a four couple longwise set, Murrough Landon (2025)

1- 8 1st couple dance down below 3rd couple and cast up to 2nd place as 2nd couple step up. 1st couple, giving left hands, then turn nearly one and a half times to end on the 1st diagonal.
9-12 1st couple, with left hands still joined in the centre, take right hands with their 1st corners and all Balance-in-Line. 1st couple retain left hands and half turn to face their 3rd corners.
13-16 1st couples dance half a diagonal reel of four on the 1st diagonal, starting by passing their 3rd corners right shoulder. 1st couple end pulling right shoulder back to join left hands with each other on the 2nd diagonal beside their 2nd corners.
17-24 1st couple repeat bars 9-16 with their 2nd corners. This time they end back to back on the centre line (after an optional extra twirl). 1st man faces up, 1st woman faces down.
25-28 1st man joining hands with 3rd couple at the top, and 1st woman joining hands with 2nd couple at the bottom, each set as in double triangles.
1st couple dance half way round each other so that 1st man faces down and 1st woman faces up. Meanwhile 3rd and 2nd couples chase round one corner position clockwise.
29-32 All repeat bars 25-28 from new places, but 1st couple end curving out diagonally to their right, following 2nd man and 3rd woman.

All end on their own sides in the order 2,1,3.

(Dance crib compiled by the deviser, Murrough Landon, CC BY-SA August 2025)

Keith Rose's Crib Diagram

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Dance Information

The inscription states,

"For Anna Bergamini from Verona. At the 2025 Munich Scottish Weekend she was displaying a thin saltire of pale skin on an otherwise very bronzed back. It later occurred to me that Anna not only Dances Scottish but also Tans Scottish which then inspired this dance and its title."

It describes how, during the 2025 Munich Scottish Weekend, Anna Bergamini was seen with a pale cross-shaped mark resembling the Scottish saltire on her otherwise deeply tanned back. The contrast gave rise to the idea that she not only danced Scottish country dances but had also acquired a "Scottish tan".

This amusing observation inspired the creation of the dance and its title.

Published in Tan Scottish, reproduced here with the kind permission of the deviser, Murrough Landon, CC BY-SA.

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