Deviser’s Note: Lazlo is the artist pseudonym of Maguy Paillet, a keen dancer with the Scottish Chanterelle society (Lyon, France) for many years. The dance was written in 2007 as a tribute to Maguy’s courage in her fight against cancer and to celebrate all the happy moments spent together. The Lazlo figure tells of the dancers’ admiration for her loveliness and charm, while bars 29-32 stand for the artist’s talent in modelling clay into shape and thus bringing it to life.
“The Reel” (RSCDS London) No 261 (September to November 2007), page 14, carried the following obituary of Maguy Paillet.
It was with great sadness that SCD dancers recently learned of the death of Maguy Paillet on July 24 after a brief but very courageous struggle with cancer. Maguy’s first contact with Scottish Country Dancing came about through Scottish friends in her native Lyon (France) a little under 20 years ago. Thereafter she became a stalwart of the Lyon group now known as Scottish Chanterelle, her special interest being in co-ordinating a modest “Dem Team” who performed at Burns Suppers and various local cultural events. At the end of June she was at the helm of a little open-air dem in a park in Lyon but finally went into hospital two days later. She also travelled extensively and managed to take her dancing shoes along, whether to Japan or to North America. She loved the dancing and the music and also the welcoming friendly atmosphere she encountered wherever she went. Her art work was another important part of her life and her notelets and greetings cards illustrated with pictures of dancers and especially “The Blue Lady” were regularly on sale at the Summer School shop. A collage of these has now been gifted to the RSCDS as a token of the great pleasure she derived from her many years of attending Summer School. Her fondness for strathspeys was well known and two dances have been devised for her by her friends, one with music by Ken Martlew and the other with a tune by Keith Smith. She was thrilled to be able to dance these with her Lyon friends earlier this year. It is perhaps no coincidence that she passed away the morning after her Lyon friends started their 2007 Summer School and her picture had arrived safely at the RSCDS.
Editor’s note: The Strathspey “Lazlo” was originally written in 2007, and slightly modified before final publication.