Ceilidh Night – A Scottish Tradition

When most Reach Cambridge students were told that the evening activity would be a Ceilidh, they responded with silence and a look of puzzlement. By the end of the evening they were laughing, dancing with their partners and counting ’1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8…’ as they flew around the room. There are some things in life that can’t be sufficiently explained in words, you just need to give it a go and a Ceilidh is one of them. A lovely band and caller visited us at Downing College to provide us with the evening of entertainment. The caller stood in front of us and explained each dance before we had a go ourselves and shouted out the beats so we all kept in time. The evening included much laughter, upbeat fast tempo music and lots of water breaks! The Gaelic heritage of the dance made it a fun and interactive way for the students to experience some British culture, and its high tempo and tricky manoeuvres made it a great way for them to get to know their peers here at Reach Cambridge.