Hands Across The Water is an annual English Country Dance Weekend held Victoria, British Columbia for the past 26 years. It was conceived of in 2000 by Rosemary Lach after attending “Cascadia”—a long-standing weekend event sponsored by the Seattle English Country Dance community (until 2019). We follow the “dance weekend” tradition of inviting an outstanding dance leader to develop a program of workshops oriented to more experienced dancers, introducing new, often complex, and always interesting dances.
—>The Program: We begin the weekend with a community dance on the Friday evening, and for registered participants, 2 morning workshops on Saturday, followed by a catered lunch, an afternoon workshop, an evening dance, and 2 morning workshops on Sunday. Come “across the water” and dance with us! See “archive” below for past programs.
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Coming up! Hands Across the Water 2026 —September 11–13, with Jenna Simpson and The Dancehall Players. LINK to the registration document (note: click the “download” button). —> Meanwhile: for fun and a bit of joy, here’s the link to an early test-run of Jenna’s dance Murmurations — to a tune by Dave Wiesler — as it was danced at the 2024 Pinewoods English Week. Both the tune and dance were composed as a tribute to dance choreographer Joseph Pimentel. For a deeper dive, the album Champagne features 16 dance-length recordings by Dave Wielser, Naomi Morse, and Paul Oorts: Music for dances choreographed by Jenna Simpson (available through CDSS).

LINK to the 2026 Registration form—>click the “download” button Archive:
2025 Hands Across the Water (Laura Mé Smith)
2024 Hands Across the Water (Gene Murrow)
2023 Hands Across the Water (David Maceman)
2022 Hands Across the Water (Brad Foster)