Scottish Highland Dance

Scottish Highland Dance

Highland dance or Highland dancing is a style of competitive solo dancing developed in the Scottish Highlands in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the context of competitions at public events such as the Highland games, where it is often performed to the accompaniment of Highland bagpipe music. It is now seen at nearly every modern day Highland games event.

Highland dancers wear specialized shoes called ghillies.

Highland dance has been subject to many influences from outside the Highlands. For example, it has been heavily influenced by the aesthetics of the patrons of Scotland since the nineteenth century and ballet.

Highland dance should not be confused with Scottish country dance.

Read more about Scottish Highland Dance:  Basic Description of Highland Dancing, History, Organization, Judging

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    Better wear out shoes than sheets.
    —18th-century Scottish proverb, collected in J. Kelly, Complete Collection of Scottish Proverbs (1721)

    If you would feel the full force of a tempest, take up your residence on the top of Mount Washington, or at the Highland Light, in Truro.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Shall we go dance the hay, the hay?
    Never pipe could ever play
    Better shepherd’s roundelay.
    Nicholas Breton (1542–1626)