The Origins of Highland Dance

Highland Dancing goes back into the mists of antiquity, for there were dances in Scotland even before the days of the bagpipes, when dances were performed to the music of the harp.

Until 1900 only boys entered Highland Dancing competitions, but now girls outnumber boys by roughly 100 to 1.

There are four Highland dances.

The Highland Fling is said to have been inspired by the sight of a Stag cavorting about the hillside. All the movements, the arms held aloft like antlers, the feet dancing from side to side, the body turning around suggests the stags love play.

The Sword Dance is believed to have been created by Malcolm Canmore, King of Scotland. In 1054 he fought a battle near Dunstane against one of McBeth’s chiefs. The outcome was success for Malcolm, who placed his own Sword and that of his enemy on the ground in the form of a cross and danced over them in triumph.

The Seann Triubhas is a flowing graceful dance, executed at first in slow tempo with the last two steps in quick tempo. Seann Triubhas is the Gaelic for “Old Trousers” and it is believed that this dance came into vogue after the ’45 rising when the wearing of the kilt was a punishable offence and trews had to be worn by the Highlanders.

The fourth dance, The Reel O’Tulloch originated on Deeside at Tulloch Churchyard when the minister failed to appear one Sunday in winter. The congregation tried to keep warm by stamping their feet, clapping their hands and chafing their arms, until a rhythm was created.

All the different areas of Scotland had their own style of performing the four dances, until 1950 when the Scottish Official Board of Highland Dancing was formed to ensure that standards were the same in all teaching and contests, dress and judging.

Formal instruction in Highland Dancing begins at an early age for its value as a superior form of physical exercise, to promote personal grace and precise muscle control, to develop a sense of rhythm and co-ordination between body and mind and to offer for their enjoyment a disciplined and moral dance form.