Party Like It's 1699

Twelfth Night Dance
St. Joseph Shrine Church
Detroit
Jan. 5, 2026

What better way is there to ring in the new year than to party like it’s 1699? Hess Festivals and Detroit’s St. Joseph Shrine church hosted a Twelfth Night Dance Jan. 5 – technically a celebration of the 12^th day of Christmas – where participants learned a variety of Old English country dances dating between the 1600s through Victorian times.

The evening was part Christmas party and part dance lesson. Amid a festive atmosphere of lingering garlands, red bows and poinsettias, we enjoyed a drink and snack spread highlighted by warm wassail – a medieval mulled apple cider with orange juice flavored with spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves and optional vodka. It was delicious and helped set the scene as we traveled back in time.

Throughout the three-hour event, we learned five dances that had charming names like “Hole in the Wall,” “Physical Snob,” “Postie’s Jig” and “Mairi's Wedding,” plus the more descriptive “Turning by Threes.” For the most part, the dances started off slower and simpler, increasing in difficulty and speed. It culminated with class favorite “Mairi's Wedding,” a relatively simple but high energy dance where coupled dancers in concentric rings skipped in a circle before turning with their partners and moving on to the next to repeat the process.

The other dances incorporated the curtsies, bows and skips you’d expect from a period film set in England. We learned steps like a “pousette,” where couples dance while facing each other holding hands, and a “gypsy,” where partners danced around each other, making constant eye contact, plus a “back-to-back,” the English line dance version of a “do-si-do.” All the moves were simple and easy to pick up, though we were not quite advanced enough to do the dances without a caller, and the inevitable mistakes were fun just the same.

Organizer John Hess, who started learning Old English country dance in high school, began offering the dances through St. Joseph Shrine five years ago. While he hosts it through his church – a spectacular, historic Victorian Gothic Revival structure in Detroit’s Eastern Market – the dances are open to the public, and the crowd of approximately 40 or so was very welcoming. Although I arrived alone and uncertain of what I was walking in to, people introduced themselves right away, and I had no problems finding dance partners throughout the evening.

Dancing has always been a passion of mine, starting in childhood with standard jazz, tap and ballet, continuing to adulthood with salsa and some ballroom, but Old English country dancing was new to me and completely delightful. Surrounded by cold and gray, I walked into the class deep within the depths of the post-holiday, Michigan winter blues but left with my spirits lifted and a smile on my face, bidding goodbye to a group of people who no longer felt like strangers.

Twelfth Night was the first of three Old English country dances planned for the year, which will also include one on Mardi Gras and another in the fall, and I look forward to my return.