Spring fling

“I love it,” said Toney, an 18-year-old homeschooled student who lives in Elkins. “It’s an art but it requires dedication, and when you’ve mastered this complex action and made it seem natural and easy, it’s a lot of fun. A lot of my friends do it. It’s like a big old family.”

Toney has been taking Highland dance classes for 14 years, since she was 4, and also is certified to teach her own students, through the United Kingdom-based British Association of Teachers of Dancing.

“Competing pushes you to try harder,” Toney said. “It makes you a better dancer. Then it’s fun to meet girls from all over. It’s a great way to meet new friends.”

Toney has competed at the Scottish Heritage Festival & Celtic Gathering, which takes place Friday through May 8 in Harrison County, for several years and won trophies along the way.

As usual, festival events get underway with a Ceilidh, or Scottish party with music and dance, at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Via Veneto. Attendees should make reservations. Call (304) 534-3737.

The bulk of the festival takes place from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at Bridgeport City Park with a variety of activities, including not only the Scottish Highland dancing but also a heavy athletics competition, Scottish dog events, workshops, genealogy booths, food and other vendors and more.

During the heavy athletics competition, participants contend for a win in seven events, said David McKenzie, chief judge and director of the Mid-Atlantic Scottish Athletics: a stone throw, a 56-pound weight thrown for distance, a 28-pound weight thrown for distance, a hammer toss, a caber toss, the sheet toss over a high bar, and a 56-pound weight thrown over a high bar.

“It’s a muscle progression thing and they throw the heavy weights first, which helps stretch them out,” McKenzie said.

Opening ceremonies take place at noon and will feature massed bands of between 50 and 70 Scottish bagpipers, a parade of the clans and Scottish breed dogs.

In addition to the activities, vendors and demonstrations, there also will be a main stage where bands will play throughout the day. The schedule for that is as follows: 9 a.m. IONA, 10 a.m. The American Rogues, 11 a.m. Scooter Muse and Jil Chambless, 12:45 p.m. IONA, 2:15 p.m. Scooter Muse and Jil Chambless and 3:45 p.m. The American Rogues.

Those bands, along with the West Virginia Highland Dancers, will perform in concert at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the auditorium of Bridgeport High School. Tickets are available at the door $10 or $8 in advance by calling (304) 534-3737.

The festival then winds down beginning at 10:35 a.m. Sunday with the grand procession of flags, banners, bagpipers and dignitaries from the Harrison County Courthouse in Clarksburg down Main Street to First Presbyterian Church, where the Kirkin’ of the Tartans service begins at 10:45 a.m. and an 11:45 a.m. reception at Westminster Hall ends the event for this year..

This will be the 15th festival, which began in 2001. The Scottish Highland dancing was introduced a few years in, said Joyce McIntosh of Anderson, South Carolina, who coordinates the competition.

“I think it’s different from other types of folk dancing, especially the competitive part of it,” McIntosh said. “It would have originated hundreds of years ago.”

Traditionally, she added, the dancing began with male soldiers entertaining themselves.

“It was something that would keep them busy but also keep them active and in good athletic shape,” McIntosh said. “It takes a lot of stamina to do the Highland dancing, because you are hopping all the time. It’s very aerobic. That’s how it’s different from other folk dances that might be group dancing where you move around in a circle.”

In Scottish dancing, “You’re trying to get elevation all the time. That’s what requires strength in legs and stamina, to be able to hop. For at least two minutes of the dance, you are on one leg at all times.”

Because soldiers developed the steps, different variations include the Sword Dance, where they would lay their swords down and try to finish the dance without stepping on the blades; or the Victory Dance, which was performed on shields.

Katy Dillon, who teaches Highland dance in Elkins, likes the dance called Seann Triubhas, which means “old trousers” in Gaelic and comes from a time when England tried to rid Scotland of cultural items such as bagpipes and kilts.

“They took away kilts and were forced to wear trousers, so the whole dance has movement to symbolize them kicking off English trousers,” she said. “There is a lot of kicking in that one.”

About 50 dancers compete, McIntosh said, and the majority of them are girls. Many of them are taught by Dillon, who started more than 20 years ago at the age of 11 as one of five children whose parents were in the West Virginia Highlanders. Her father plays the bagpipes.

“We were interested in it because our parents were interested in Scottish culture,” said Dillon, who had to travel to Pittsburgh to take lessons and who got her teaching certificate at the age of 17.

Now she teaches around 30 students, some of whom travel from as far away from Charleston to attend class.

During the festival, competition begins at 10 a.m. with the primary, beginner and novice categories. The primary group is for children 6 years old and under, McIntosh said, followed by the beginner group, which is determined by their experience, not their age.

“You are in the beginning group until you have won a prize in six different locations,” McIntosh said. “So it forces them to have experience and get better before you move up to the next category.”

That category is novice, which, once again, is judged by experience

“Sometimes that category can have an adult who just took it up a year ago,” McIntosh said. “And then somebody who is very young who goes to a lot of competitions could be in the advanced group quickly.”

The two higher levels, intermediate and premiere, begin competing at 1 p.m. Saturday.

McIntosh judges competitions all around the United States, going by standards that have been developed by the Scottish Official Board of Highland Dancing.

“They are all doing the same steps with the same requirements,” she added. “You can go everywhere in the world and they are dressed uniformly and they will be doing the same steps out of the textbook.”

Kevin Anderson, the chairman of the festival, noted that many of the event’s activities are the same as in previous years because of the different competitions that take place.

“Scottish dancing isn’t ever going to change,” he said. “But it has new people in there who have stepped up. We haven’t added a new entity but we have new and different people doing a lot of the same things.”

Anderson got involved in the Scottish Heritage Society of North Central West Virginia after his sister researched the family ancestry and found Scottish heritage on their father’s side.

The culture also is important to Toney, who has Scottish and Irish heritage on her mother’s side.

“That’s always been a big part of the reason I love it so much,” she said.

In fact, her tartan is the Graham family tartan, a darker one than the arisaid hebridean blue — which is blue, purple and white — that she wears in competitions.

“Dancing judges like lighter, brighter colors,” she explained. “They stand out more on stage. Judges will be drawn to it more. Darker colors tend to get lost and brighter colors pop more.”

For more information and for a schedule of events, check out northcentralwestvirginiascottishfestival.com/