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Wembley and District Scottish Association Autumn Social 2013
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Held at Church of the Ascension, The Avenue, Wembley from 8pm on Monday 7th October 2013. The Zodiac
As nights get longer and dark skies return in the early evenings, my thoughts turn to the stars and the wonders of the universe. Key to finding the many interesting objects visible in the night sky is knowing one's way around the heavens. Since ancient times mankind has navigated through the stars by imagining that the patterns in the sky represented people, creatures and objects from mythology which came to be known as the constellations. The most famous of the 88 internationally recognised constellations are the 12 that are known as the Zodiac. To some people these are mystical symbols that explain certain aspects of a person's personality and predict future events in their life - to others, with a more scientific bent, they are simply the randomly occurring patterns that serve as a background to the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere. However, tonight we will use these constellations as a basis for our programme. Starting at Aries (at the top of the picture above) and working our way clockwise we will do one well-known dance for each constellation and in keeping with the mystic theme, we will only reveal the dances on the night. The links between dance and constellation range from the cryptic to the frankly ridiculous and they will be walked/talked through as necessary. So please join us for a fun evening as we explore the heavens together.
The Programme
Aries - the ram
A dreadful pun to start with as we dance Airies Bennan. Setting a low bar already for the rest of the evening's links. Taurus - the bull
It gets no better with our second dance, The Bull of Bon Accord. Gemini - the twins
A lovely constellation this one, high in the sky throughout the summer. However when I think of Gemini, I think of the American space programme of the 1960's, when I was a boy and space travel was so exciting. Now, one of the most famous astronauts who first flew on Gemini was Dave Scott who went on to walk on the moon as commander of Apollo 15, then headed up the Astronaut Office at NASA (and had a relationship with Anna Ford, the UK newsreader). Anyway, the dance chosen to celebrate this famous explorer was written for another Scott - Scott Meikle. Cancer - the crab
A rather indistinct constellation with no bright stars, the crab does have one particularly interesting feature, a lovely open star cluster called the Beehive Cluster. Visible with the naked eye under dark skies, through a telescope it looks amazing with hundreds of stars of all colours and brightnesses. So the dance for this constellation has to be The Bees of Maggieknockater. Leo - the lion
This constellation, unlike many, actually looks rather like the creature it is supposed to depict. With a large backward question mark like a mane and a triangle of stars to represent the lion's hindquarters it squats in the same pose as the lions that surround Nelson's column in Trafalgar Square. No-one has, as far as I know, written a dance for Trafalgar Square, but someone did for Sloane Square. Virgo - the virgin
Virgo marks the halfway point of our journey around the sky and it also contains the point where the sun moves from the northern hemisphere to the South, Crossing The Line known as the Celestial Equator. Libra - the scales
The obvious dance to do at this stage would be Equilibrium but as a strathspey is next on the list, we will do a dance that represents part of a traditional set of balancing scales which consists of a cross beam with Silver Tassies, or cups, hanging off each end to hold the weights and objects to be weighed. Scorpio - the scorpion
One of my favorite legends about the constellations concerns Orion, who was a great hunter (he is depicted as fighting against another zodiacal constellation, Taurus the bull) and he boasted that he could best any animal in battle. This was born out by his many successful battles until a lowly scorpion crawled out from under a stone and killed him by stinging him on the heel. The gods swung them both up into the sky but, to prevent further trouble, placed them directly opposite each other so that they are never above the horizon at the same time. Tonight we commemorate, not the scorpion or the hunter, but The Recumbent Stone. Sagittarius - the archer
Within this large constellation is an asterism, an unofficial pattern of stars which looks like a teapot and is not far from the point in the sky that marks the centre of our galaxy. Now, of course, teapots lead to thinking about different blends of tea, one of the most famous being Earl Gray named for the British Prime Minister in the 1830's. The Second Earl Gray, his first name was ...... Charles! However, we'll dance James Gray anyway! Capricorn - the goat
A simple one this: goats produce a very luxurious fleece called Cashmere which is made into a luxurious wool that is fine in texture, strong, light and soft. It makes an excellent Cashmere Shawl Aquarius - the water bearer
In Greek mythology, Aquarius is sometimes associated with Deucalion, the son of Prometheus who built a ship with his wife Pyrrha to survive an imminent flood. They sailed for nine days before washing ashore on Mount Parnassus. So we'll dance The New Rigged Ship to represent this constellation. Pisces - the fishes
This constellation marks the end of our journey round the heavens and the obvious dance to finish with is The Fisherman's Reel. |
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