Sommerkurs / Summer Course 21.06. - 25.06.2023

Temperatures of up to 32°C, not a breeze in sight and already sweating at the mere thought of any physical activity leave only one option for sensible minded people — to cram into the classroom at the Kuckucksnest with 34 other people and dance the night away!

This year's summer course in Schlüchtern was all about the 'oomph': Duncan Brown skilfully managed to extract every last ounce of motivation from his students (in spite of the unfavourable weather conditions) through his dry humour, enthusiasm and contagious energy, with Silke on the piano providing an ever reliable safety net that carried our feet through every session. Never fazed even by our more spontaneous requests, she beautifully complemented Duncan's choice of dances, about many of which he was happy to share some insider information from the deviser with us.

After class (and the recurring race of 'who-gets-the-last-bit-of-warm-water-in-the-shower'), we had plenty of time to figure out whether we were all on the same page, be it through a game of 'Codenames' or flipping through the 'Liedlawine'-Songbooks. And since some of us still couldn’t get enough of dancing, Gisela offered to teach us the 'Dugald Dalgetty' fugue by Hugh Foss — definitely a personal highlight from this course for me! Another highlight was the long awaited comeback of the Summer Ball in Sterbfritz after a Covid-mandated hiatus, which served as a wonderful conclusion to this course on Saturday evening — complete with our very own (be it rather grey-haired) boy band. ;-)

While I can’t help but feel a bit sad that another summer course is already over, I'm very grateful to have shared this time and space with old and new friends alike and to be able to pass on the charm of the Kuckucksnest (with a certain first timer being very nervous on the way there but smiling almost the entire ride home). I'm sure I'm not the only one who's already looking forward to coming back next year!
Last but not least, a big thank you goes out to Antje and Gisela for their organisational efforts and to Stina and Ebby for making it even harder to concentrate on footwork when the mouth-watering smell of their next creation wafts up through the house, hours before we're allowed to dig in …!

Wiebke E. Luedtke, SCD Lüneburg