VCS Dancers

During the early 20th century, SCD still had a part in social entertainment especially in rural Scotland, even though the number of dances within the active repertoire had gone down to only a few. Country dancing was in danger of dying out, when in 1923 the Scottish Country Dance Society (SCDS) was founded in Glasgow with the goal of preserving "country dances as danced in Scotland" (this was only recently changed to read "Scottish country dances"). The SCDS began to collect and publish the remaining dances as well as reconstruct (or reinterpret) from old sources dances that were no longer being danced. In the process, the dances and technique, which might differ considerably depending on where in Scotland a dance would be collected, were strictly standardized, which from the point of view of preservation was of course a terrible thing to do, but which paved the way for universal "compatibility" among dancers from (eventually) all over the world. The efforts of the SCDS became quite popular, and its influence on the training of physical education teachers meant that most Scottish children would be exposed to at least a minimum of SCD during school. The Society achieved Royal patronage in 1947 and henceforth became known as the RSCDS (for "Royal" Scottish Country Dance Society).

Fairly soon after the inception of the SCDS people started inventing new dances in the spirit of the older ones, but also introducing new figures not part of the "traditional" canon. Today there are over 11.000 dances catalogued, of which fewer than 1.000 can be considered "traditional". Anybody can come up with a new dance, but many dances are of local importance only; the RSCDS does publish collections of new dances every so often but does not try to control the invention of new material. Neither is it in a position to dictate how dances are danced and who may teach them, but the Society does hold significant influence since they teach the majority of Scottish country dance teachers, and their canon of dances makes up a very large proportion of the "global" repertoire that one can expect to meet wherever Scottish country dancing takes place.

Modern SCD has evolved considerably from the early 18th century, with the constant devising of new dances, new concepts, informal variations and entirely new ideas appear. As a pursuit, Scottish country dancing is no longer confined to Scotland. Active communities can be found throughout the world - in the rest of Britain, continental Europe, Canada and the US as well as Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, with occasional groups in places as diverse as Russia, South Africa, Argentina and Hong Kong. Gay and lesbian Scottish country dancing groups, first being organised in London and now in Manchester and Edinburgh aptly named The Gay Gordons offer same-sex Scottish country dancing, and the London group uses "leaders" and "followers" instead of "men" and "ladies" .

Scottish country dancing is now recognised as a valuable activity for maintaining health and fitness. Researchers at the University of Strathclyde in August 2010 made a study  of seventy women between the ages of 60 and 85 years; half were Scottish country dancers and the remainder participated in other physical activities such as swimming, walking, golf and keep fit classes. The women were assessed on their strength, stamina, flexibility and balance. They all compared favourably with average fitness levels for women in their age range, but the Scottish country dancers were shown to have more agility, stronger legs, and to be able to walk more briskly than people who took part in other forms of exercise.