Scottish Country Dancing Dictionary


The specified dancers all Face clockwise or anticlockwise, usually in a Circular set or around the rectangle formed by either adjacent Places or the Corner positions of a Longwise set, and dance round The set, normally passing through each Place in turn. However, if there are Standing dancers in some Places, the Chasing dancers should Dance Outside them unless otherwise specified.

The Figure is normally allocated 8 bars and the dancers should Finish in their Starting Places. In a Circular set, it is acceptable for the path to be circular; in a Longwise set, the path should follow the sides of the rectangle and 2 bars should be allocated to each side.

The expression is used more generally, with appropriate qualification, to represent any "follow my leader" movement as, for example, for the 2nd and 5th Couples in bars 9-16 of Polharrow Burn. Individual Scottish Country Dancers may be replaced by Couples taking any Hold including Allemande and Promenade.

For example, here are some Scottish Country Dances in which the term, Chasing, is used in either the MiniCrib or the MaxiCrib Dance instructions or both -
Dark Mile
Drummond Castle
Entente Florale
Epping Hundred
Fireside Strathspey
Forteviot Jig
Fugal Fergus
Peterhead Express
Stone Of Destiny

Links To Pages Related To 'Chasing'


Back to the top of this Scottish Country Dancing 'Chasing' page