The idea came during the 2025 annual workshop organised by Alba Bihan, the SCD group in Séné: why not embark volunteer dancers in the group on a DAA adventure? A slightly crazy project, but such a stimulating one, which would give intermediate dancers the chance to improve their skills locally, and to work as a team towards a common aim – the Dancing Achievement Award, with its 9 dances, 23 formations, and particular attention to phrasing, posture, hands and arms, feet, covering and eye contact. The idea was put forward by Claudine Auriacombe, the group’s teacher, and enthusiastically seconded by Laure Gardelle, the certified RSCDS Lyon Branch teacher who was teaching the annual workshop.

The project soon came to life, with support from Alba Bihan and its president, Michel Hance (who suggested that the group pay for the registration fees), and eventually involved seven eager volunteers (Chantal, Christine, Claudine, Michel, Michèle, Murielle and Stephan) and two non-assessed dancers, Jean and Lionel, who acted as supporting dancer or spare. The course teacher was Laure Gardelle, who also liaised with Headquarters, as communication in English was somewhat difficult for the group. For the same reason, she also produced a booklet with French translations of all the pages of the Manual that were relevant for the syllabus, and of the instructions for the nine dances (together with advice on tricky points).

Because Laure lives on the other side of France, nearly 500 miles east of Séné, the next challenge was how to best organise the course at a reasonable cost. Rather than an intensive course, the choice was to have two training sessions: one in October 2025, the other in February 2026 (immediately consecutive to the 2026 annual workshop, taught by Laure, so that there were no extra travelling costs). The time in-between these two sessions allowed the dancers to meet up and practise together, also to record themselves thanks to Stephan, occasionally asking Laure questions about finer points or getting feedback on chosen videos – long live whatsapp and phone cameras! The group were also greatly helped by the official RSCDS DAA videos of the nine dances. These were performed at intermediate level, which helped target the requirements for a “pass”. For advanced performances of the same dances, which are good ways to improve, the group relied on a selection of videos from the Scottish Country Dance Database website.

The DAA candidates truly bonded during those rehearsals – sometimes wondering why on earth they had chosen to sweat for an exam, but also having many bursts of laughter, and always turning up with great pleasure. Christine says: “Initially, I just wanted to help out as a non-assessed dancer, but when I decided to actually take the DAA, I felt more motivation to progress. Then as I got to know the other dancers better, came the pleasure of sharing small and big “victories”, the joy of dancing together, the giggles, the winks, understanding of each other, support for low morale. In short, we started out as individuals, and became a team! And we all passed!” This sums up everyone’s state of mind. Health issues that had an impact on the quality of dancing were taken into account for the assessment, which made everyone feel acknowledged in their efforts to do their best, even when their best could not be their ideal best.

As assessment day drew nearer, stress increased, especially as this was the first DAA Intermediate course in France, and as the RSCDS was commissioning two assessors just for us! The assessors, Patrick Chamoin and Matthias Ferber, immediately put us at ease, and reminded us that the aim of the exam was just to see us dance and take pleasure in dancing as a team. The exam itself had a dream-like quality to it: all those dances and formations we had spent so many hours learning and revising translated into what felt like a few minutes of dancing. We were probably not at our very best with the stress we felt, but we were so glad to have been part of the project! Having all of us pass was also pure joy – the team united to the end. We even have a dance to remember the DAA by: “The Séné Penguins”, devised for us by Laure. The title echoes the nickname that emerged during our training, reflecting how clumsy we felt at times… also how lovely the whole experience was.

The DAA adventure is definitely not over: this was just a first step. We all improved, we also feel more confident in guiding beginners, but we are also aware of what we need to do to improve further in future. We feel deeply grateful to the RSCDS for having created the DAA, also for contributing to the assessors’ expenses when organised locally, even for such a small group as ours. We can only encourage other dancers to give it a try!