HIGHLAND DANCING

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 98, 20 January 1936, Page 6

HIGHLAND DANCING

Danger of Thirst For

Innovation

By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, January 18.

“Highland dancing, which is surrounded by a jealous regard for tradition, will live vigorously, but the moment its national character is sacri- . deed to a thirst for innovation it will fall into decay and earn the contempt deserved by such hybridisation,” said Mr. Alex Sutherland, of Dunedin, who is now visiting Auckland and is an authority on Highland dancing. “Of late years Highland dances have become commercialised, owing to people taking up the art not for the art itself but as a means of gaining prizes at sports gatherings." Mr. Sutherland criticised the tendency to introduce new steps into folk dances and therefore to destroy tradition. In all Highland dancing the steps must be true to type. “I am sorry to say that in recent years a lot of modern innovations have crept in which have destroyed to a certain degree the character and dignity of Highland dances. If a dancer who has been trained in another school of dancing, such as French, Italian, or Russian, takes up Highland dancing he will dance it as a foreigner and will introduce into it things which are natural to his own country, but are unnatural to Scotland. The day may even come when you will be getting American tap-dancing introduced into Highland dancing. We should determinedly hold to tradition, otherwise we may some day see the Seann Triubhais jazzed.”