RSCDS Virtual Festival 2020 - Moscow Branch (“Deer O’Dale“, Ufa)

WHEEL OF THE YEAR We began shooting for display dance on location in September, so, naturally first candidate for dance theme was Samhain, as most well-known Celtic celebration outside of Scotland. Here in Bashkortostan first yellow leaves are beginning to show in late August, but trees will get to full autumn colors in early October, giving wide range of outdoor sceneries. Therefore, we decided to combine locations to add in Beltain scene for more variety. Costumes also was selected to reflect both joy and gloom of respective parts of the year. For music in more lighthearted first part of the dance we selected David Cunningham’s music for Book 22 (fun fact – his musical style is somewhat similar to local ethnic music of Bashkortostan). And for second part, we used iconic Slytherin House in combination with music of Russian folk music group Gilead, which sound is spot on for more darker Samhain. Recurring plot of Samhain legends is “normal” people that by accident had contacted with Sidhe (often by enormou