GERARDA MACDONALD
Highland dancer
Antigonish Highland Games Hall of Fame
Inducted: July 11, 2019
Gerarda MacDonald, Highland dancer, instructor and choreographer, presents Sarah McKenna with the Florence MacMillan Trophy at the 2008 Antigonish Highland Games
As a young girl Gerarda MacDonald started taking Highland dancing lessons from her Hillcrest Street neighbour Florence MacMillan. When Highland dancing became standardized in the 1950’s and 60’s Florence took it upon herself to become familiar with all the new steps so she could teach them to her students. Gerarda was a special protegee not only because she had talent and grace but because they lived on the same street. Florence would often bring her young neighbour into her kitchen to exhibit the steps and sequences as she read them from the printed instructions. She had to thoroughly understand the flow of the standardized dances if her own students in Nova Scotia were to compete at the highest levels. Dancing in Florence’s kitchen with her teacher watching every move, taught Gerarda to always dance well and to always land lightly on her feet.
Gerarda was the top dancer of her age group in the Maritimes circuit during the 60’s and early ‘70’s. Her grace and talent as a dancer were noticed while she was dancing as a summer student at the Gaelic College. From there she was invited to perform at the Julliard School of Music in New York. At the Antigonish Highland Games, she won top open dancer several times and was the first winner of the Florence MacMillan Trophy for best performance in the Flora MacDonald’s Fancy. Gerarda won this most prestigious trophy two more times before she stopped competing and took up teaching Highland dance.
Gerarda worked full-time as a dance instructor from 1974 to 1984 contributing to an era of rapid growth in Highland dance. She was instrumental in bringing the first Canadian championship in Highland dancing to the Antigonish Highland Games. In 1979 more than 700 Highland dancers came to Antigonish to compete in the Canadian championships in the midst of a full Highland Games. It was not hard for Gerarda to convince the national dancing association of the benefits of coming to Antigonish. Everyone, it seemed, had a great opinion of the Games and wanted to be in the middle of them.
It was also during this time as a full-time dance teacher that Gerarda and Janice Macquarrie were asked to organize the dancing component of a big tattoo that would be put on in Antigonish as part of the 1979 International Gathering of the Clans. They assembled a large troupe of local dancers to take part in a very memorable Columbus Field performance. The tattoo was the beginning of a shift in the way Gerarda and Janice looked at their discipline. They saw all these kids who were taught by different teachers and who were so used to competing against one another, instead performing together and in performing together showing off the agility, grace, strength and versatility of Highland dance to new audiences.
Following the success at the tattoo, Gerarda and Janice teamed up with Bernice MacDougall, Scott Williams and Murdo MacIsaac to organize the Scotia Highland Dancers. They put out a call to all the premier competitive dancers in the surrounding counties who were at least 10 years old. They gave auditions to a hundred dancers and chose 37 of them for the first troupe. That winter they met regularly in Scott’s living room to dream up and choreograph the numbers the girls would perform. And, they began planning a trip to Scotland. Based on that one public performance at the tattoo, the group was invited to represent Nova Scotia at the International Gathering of the Clans in Scotland in 1981.
The girls were required to continue competing as individuals as long as they were part of the troupe. In their first visit to Scotland, along with the many concerts they gave, all the Scotia Highland dancers competed in the Commonwealth and World Highland dancing championships as well as other competitions. The girls brought 86 awards home to Nova Scotia and were able to put three dancers in the world championship finals. One of them, Patti-Ann MacLeod, a student of Gerarda’s, came first runner-up in the world.
Gerarda stayed with the Scotia Highland Dancers until 1993. She is proud of all that the girls accomplished as ambassadors of our province and country. She has a special spot in her heart for her students. “You don’t teach a dancer for a year or a semester,” she says, “you teach them for many of their formative years.” Like her own teacher, Florence MacMIllan, Gerarda was always learning and experimenting and expecting great things from her students. And like Florence, she was strict with us but we always had a lot of fun along the way.
Gerarda can be proud of the continuing huge interest in Highland dancing. She was a very big part of growing that interest.
For all her success as a solo competitor at the Antigonish Highland Games and for all she has done to instruct and choreograph other dancers and dance troupes, Gerarda MacDonald is inducted into the Antigonish Highland Games Hall of Fame.