Archive-Date: Thu, 01 Aug 2002 11:11:11 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Thu, 01 Aug 2002 14:11:02 -0400 From: Joyce Crouch Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Across the Atlantic 2002, Sept 21-22 To: ECD List Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Dear ECD List Friends, A few months ago I sent an early alert about the 2nd (annual? we don't know, but it sure was a success last year) "Across the Atlantic" English country dance weekend in the Amherst, MA area, featuring the superb teaching of Philippe Callens and Brad Foster, plus gorgeous music and beautiful New England dance halls with excellent wood floors for your dancing pleasure. We've been getting inquiries and advance registrations from people (in CA, NC, NY, PA, & even MA!) who've come across the flyer or called for information. It seems only fair to let the rest of you know the nitty-gritty. :) So (trumpet fanfare...!!!), here are the details about the cool, fall-weather, no-mosquito, September 2002 version of "Across the Atlantic!" Contact Info and information on hospitality, Advance Registration Discount, and Directions to the halls are toward the end of this msg. We look forward to seeing some of you there! Joyce Crouch, Email Publicity Chair Amherst MA - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Across the Atlantic 2002 September 21-22, 2002 Celebrate autumn with a special weekend of English Country Dancing in scenic Amherst and Greenfield, MA, to be led by the internationally renowned Philippe Callens of Belgium and Brad Foster of the United States Join us for *any or all three* events! [Register for all 3 events by Sept. 14 and save $5. See below for details] **************************************************************************** Event # 1 -- Saturday afternoon -- A Workshop of Dances Composed and Reconstructed by Philippe Callens Called by Philippe Callens Music by Mary Lea, violin, & Karen Axelrod, piano September 21 -- 2:00-5:00 PM -- Munson Library -- Amherst, MA Admission: $10.00 at the door -- Open to all __________________________________ Event #2 -- Saturday evening -- The Pleasures of the Town English Country Dance Called by Brad Foster Music by Mary Lea, violin; Chris Rua, oboe & recorders; Joyce Crouch, piano September 21 -- 8:00-11:00 PM -- Munson Library -- Amherst, MA Admission: $7.00 -- Open to all -- Beginners are welcome __________________________________ Event #3 -- Sunday afternoon -- An Afternoon for Advanced Dancers -- Challenging dances selected specifically for experienced dancers Called by Philippe Callens Music by Mary Lea, violin; Chris Rua, oboe & recorders; Karen Axelrod, piano September 22, -- 2:00-5:00 PM -- Guiding Star Grange -- Greenfield, MA Admission: $10.00 (includes delectable refreshments) -- Limited to experienced dancers **************************************************************************** General Information: No partner necessary -- but please bring clean, soft-soled shoes for dancing. Staying overnight? Some hospitality is available. For more information about the events or about hospitality, please contact Robin Hayden at: >robinhayden-AT- earthlink.net or phone her at 413-256-8260. This weekend is sponsored by the Pleasures of the Town dance series, member of Amherst Area English Country Dancers, affiliated with Country Dance & Song Society. **************************************************************************** Advance Registration Discount Information for "Across the Atlantic 2002" No advance registration is required, but we offer an Advance Registration Discount, all 3 dances for $22.00, saving $5.00 on admission for the weekend. To register for the whole weekend, simply print out the form below or write the equivalent information on a piece of paper, and send along with a check payable to "Pleasures of the Town" by September 14, 2002. Please print your information clearly! Sorry, no discounts at the door. Cancellation policy: Full refund if cancellation is received by Sept 14. (cut here) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Advance Registration for "Across the Atlantic 2002" Mail payment to: Roger Webb, Registrar 1141 South East Street Amherst, MA 01002 Name(s): ___________________________________________________________________ How many -AT- $22.00 each: _________ Total enclosed: $________________________ For email confirmation of receipt of your registration, please print (very clearly!) your email address: ____________________________________________________________________ (cut here) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - **************************************************************************** Directions to the weekend events [Saturday in Amherst, Sunday in Greenfield] 1) Munson Library -- South East Street, [South] Amherst, MA -- Saturday afternoon and evening From I-91, Exit 19 (Route 9, Amherst): Go east approximately 5+ miles on Route 9. Go past Amherst town common, under the railroad overpass, and TURN RIGHT at the next light onto SOUTHEAST ST. Continue on this road and bear left at the fork as you approach the South Amherst town common. Munson Library is on the left. Free Parking at the church next door or on the street. 2) Guiding Star Grange -- 401 Chapman Street, Greenfield, MA -- Sunday afternoon From the south on I-91 or from the west on Rt 2: On I-91, take EXIT #26 to the rotary (Route 2 east enters the rotary as well). Take Rte 2A east toward Greenfield center. You will come to a traffic light with Dunkin' Donuts on your right. Continue STRAIGHT ascending up the hill to MAIN ST. After about 1/2 mile TURN LEFT onto CHAPMAN ST (after Conway and Wells Sts). Travel a bit more than a mile to the Guiding Star Grange (401 Chapman); it's on the right just before the street ends at Silver St. Free Parking in the Grange lot and lot across the street. From the north on I-91 or from the east on Rt 2: From I-91, exit to Route 2 East towards Boston, and then take your immediate first exit (it will be Rte 5 & 10). At the exit, take a right on Rte. 5 & 10 South. Travel south towards Greenfield center and in less than a half mile you will come to traffic lights with convenience stores on both far corners. TURN RIGHT here onto SILVER ST. Travel about a mile. TURN LEFT onto CHAPMAN ST. The second building on the left is the Guiding Star Grange (401 Chapman). Free Parking in the Grange lot and lot across the street. ================================================================= Joyce B Crouch Telephone: 413-549-4123 95 Pulpit Hill Road Fax: 413-549-7096 Amherst MA 01002 email: joycecrouch-AT- pobox.com ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Thu, 01 Aug 2002 13:40:27 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Thu, 01 Aug 2002 16:40:20 -0400 (EDT) From: Tideswell-AT- aol.com Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Re: The quiet hall... dancing without amplification To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT We had good advice from... >Gene Murrow >EC Dancer, Musician, and power-free, scent-free, and gender-free caller >as appropriate I hear Gene is also high-fiber and rich in natural antioxidants, but maybe I shouldn't believe everything I read on bathroom walls. Nilos ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Thu, 01 Aug 2002 13:56:50 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Thu, 01 Aug 2002 13:59:06 -0400 From: Allison M Thompson Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Re: Frank Kidson To: ECD-AT- SSRL04.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU CC: ECD-AT- SSRL04.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: <20020801.165702.-1954219.3.AllisonThompson-AT- juno.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT I just came across a copy of Frank Kidson's English Country Dances (Curwen, 1914). It includes 12 very easy dances, arranged for children, all but one in a 3 couple set. Kidson points out that the dance changed over the generations, and that one reason for its discontinuance was that when the dance included many couples, most of these had to remain stationary while the top couple performed the figure. "To obviate this disagreeable point a form where three couples only made up the set was introduced." The dances include Gavotte The Guitar The Ladies' Delight The Tangle Jack in a Cage Hornpipe Ligrum Cush Money in Both Pockets The Steam Boat Sukey Bids Me The Merry Sailor The Opera Hat Kidson does not name his source, nor discuss how much he modified the dances. Some of his descriptions are rather clunky, such as this one: "The top boy takes the hand of second girl (both right hands). The second boy takes the hand of the top girl, and they all four go completely round (towards the left hand) until they reach their own places." Kidson was a colleague of Neal, which may explain why he seems unaffected by Sharp's clearer terminology. But does anyone know more about Mr. Kidson? Allison Thompson ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Thu, 01 Aug 2002 14:39:44 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Thu, 01 Aug 2002 17:30:40 -0400 (EDT) From: "Roger W. Broseus" Subject: Re: Frank Kidson To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Message-ID: <41558.148.184.176.32.1028237440.squirrel-AT- www.weitzman.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT References: <20020801.165702.-1954219.3.AllisonThompson-AT- juno.com> Allison: I've been told, again and again: Google is your friend. Try searching at google.com for "frank kidson". I struck-out at the LOC site. /Roger > I just came across a copy of Frank Kidson's English Country Dances > (Curwen, 1914). It includes 12 very easy dances, arranged for children, > all but one in a 3 couple set. Kidson points out that the dance > changed over the generations, and that one reason for its > discontinuance was that when the dance included many couples, most of > these had to remain >stationary while the top couple performed the figure. "To obviate this >disagreeable point a form where three couples only made up the set was >introduced." > > The dances include > Gavotte > The Guitar > The Ladies' Delight > The Tangle > Jack in a Cage > Hornpipe > Ligrum Cush > Money in Both Pockets > The Steam Boat > Sukey Bids Me > The Merry Sailor > The Opera Hat > > Kidson does not name his source, nor discuss how much he modified the > dances. Some of his descriptions are rather clunky, such as this one: > "The top boy takes the hand of second girl (both right hands). The > second boy takes the hand of the top girl, and they all four go > completely round (towards the left hand) until they reach their own > places." > > Kidson was a colleague of Neal, which may explain why he seems > unaffected by Sharp's clearer terminology. > > But does anyone know more about Mr. Kidson? > > > Allison Thompson -- Roger W. Broseus ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Thu, 01 Aug 2002 17:54:28 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Thu, 01 Aug 2002 20:52:06 -0400 From: "Hanny D. Budnick" <74031.77-AT- compuserve.com> Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Re: The quiet hall... dancing without am To: Blind.Copy.Receiver-AT- compuserve.com Message-ID: <200208012054_MC3-1-967-32DE-AT- compuserve.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Particularly at the gigs from hell and almost-purgatory, to Gene's fine list I'd add the suggestion to ASK the participants before the dance/music starts, whether anybody has need for any more clarification... _-AT- _ {)/' /\ /\_._,<_/ ' \ /_\ /> /< Hanny ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Fri, 02 Aug 2002 12:35:43 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Fri, 02 Aug 2002 15:35:39 -0400 From: "Stephen D. Corrsin" Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Peek at Peak To: ecd-digest-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU BCC: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Dear colleagues, I've been musing about references to "peak" experiences which appear in regard to ECD. I don't know what that means. My personal view, as I have said in my typically tiresome and annoying fashion, is that pleasant recreation is what I look for and find in ECD. I don't think I'm unusual in looking for pleasant recreation rather than something more overwhelming, and I'd assume that recreation can't typically be equated with "peak" experiences. I've heard some contraites refer to something like that, I guess, but it seems unlikely to me in that area as well. Guess I'm just not susceptible. Some of you all may know that I'm a sword dancer. I certainly look for accomplishment, achievement, etc., in that area more than in ECD. But "peak" in sword dancing, for me at least? No, that is too much. It seems to me, fundamentally, to be high-falutin' rhetoric applied to recreational activity. But de gustibus non est disputandum, or something like that. (It's been a long time since junior high Latin.) "Peak" experience... it seems to me that is something that I might discuss most satisfactorily with my wife, but not on this list. Steve Corrsin Steve Corrsin 5166 Patrick Rd. West Bloomfield MI 48322 tel 248-661-6283 fax 248-661-6288 _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Fri, 02 Aug 2002 13:11:48 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Fri, 02 Aug 2002 16:11:27 -0400 From: Campbell Kaynor Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Re: Peek at Peak To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Dear Steven, I'm not sure what you mean by "peak" experiences. I think perhaps your description of "pleasant recreation" might be called a peak in the sense that it is a worthy goal and one that I would assume is quite ubiquitous to all of us who lead dances. I think the responses that stimulated your 2 cents were in reference to digressions from the question - "should caller-less ECD be considered and ideal?" Ideals (peak experiences?) are not the sort of thing that one EXPECTS to encounter, but rather they are the visions that help us to develop our goals and priorities and help us to organize our time management and strategies. For example, I have a vision that it would be wonderful if we could in fact listen to music and it would tell us how to move. Bearing this in mind, I play music that is far better suited to the dance figures than what I might have played if I were doing it for a listening audience. This can contribute significantly to a "pleasant recreational experience" in that the dancers don't have to concentrate so much and can more easily just relax and enjoy themselves. Cammy ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Fri, 02 Aug 2002 13:22:26 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Fri, 02 Aug 2002 16:39:39 -0400 From: Graham.Christian-AT- risk.sungard.com Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: No peeking! To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT There is a flood tide of written material about the ecstatic experience in dance (from the heights of Valery on down)--to which I will not add my own ill-considered blather...not least because I think our dear Dr. Corrsin is being provocative--and perhaps *only* that. Graham Christian Technical Writer, Product Management Telephone number: (617)542-2800, extension 247 Email address: graham.christian-AT- risk.sungard.com Group web address: http://www.risk.sungard.com SunGard Trading and Risk Systems, BancWare 3 Post Office Square Boston, MA 02109 "Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow." ********************************************************************** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by MIMEsweeper for the presence of computer viruses. ********************************************************************** ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Fri, 02 Aug 2002 23:59:21 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 01:58:03 -0500 From: Paul Stamler Subject: Re: Peek at Peak To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Message-ID: <001f01c23abb$1d28be60$45284b0c-AT- paulstam> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT References: ----- Original Message ----- From: Stephen D. Corrsin <> P'raps not. I can testify as a musician to having had a couple of experiences that, looking back, qualified as peaks in my book. There was a time at Kimmswick, playing "Duke of Kent's Waltz" with Pam Carson & Margaret Ann Goodman, where, after we'd played for a solid ten or twelve minutes without anyone (musicians or dancers) flagging, you could have scraped me off the moon. Peace, Paul ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 00:07:48 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 02:06:30 -0500 From: Paul Stamler Subject: Fw: the U. City Happy Birthday song X-MX-Warning: Warning -- Invalid "To" header. To: Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Message-ID: <004101c23abc$4b9035c0$45284b0c-AT- paulstam> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Hi folks: I'm not sure this is exactly the place to post this, but I'm curious...has this folk custom shown up where you are? (I've heard it a few times, always in University City, MO.) Peace, Paul This originally came from John Uhlemann, international folk dancer and radio programmer: This can be filed under modern folklore, I suppose. University City has a tradition (at least 40 years old, I'm told) of singing Happy Birthday to the tune of the "Song of the Volga Boatmen". Newcomers are often surprised to hear us regale some poor soul with: "Happy Birthday.... Oh, happy birthday.... Children Crying, People dying happy birthday" I now find that other communities have similar versions. I had a chance to compare these at Balkan Camp recently when Petur Iliev was serenaded with the East Coast version: "Happy birthday oh Happy birthday, One more day closer to death happy birthday" No internal rhyme scheme, but punchy, nonetheless. It was enhanced by a stamp and a loud "Unhhh!" after the first line. A discussion followed, during which it appears that the Philadelphia crown has a large repertoire of largely scatological rhymed couplets which they insert in the middle section. This requires repetition of that part of the melodic line, breaking the classic structure, but the couplets themselves have a certain cachet, e.g., "now you've reached the age you are your demise cannot be far" "may the candles on your cake burn like cities in your wake" "May your deeds with sword and ax rival those with sheep and yaks" Etc. The things you learn at Balkan camp.... -John Uhlemann ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 00:18:25 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 03:07:27 -0400 From: Sharon Green Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Re: Fw: the U. City Happy Birthday song To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020803030323.022cc040-AT- popserver.panix.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT The one I know goes: "Doom destruction and despair, People dying everywhere, Happy birthday, Uhhh! Oh, happy birthday..." Put all the versions together and you'd really have a depressing anthem. Happy dancing--and gloomy singing, if you choose-- Sharon Green At 02:06 AM 8/3/2002 -0500, Paul Stamler wrote: >Hi folks: > >I'm not sure this is exactly the place to post this, but I'm curious...has >this folk custom shown up where you are? (I've heard it a few times, always >in University City, MO.) > >Peace, >Paul > >This originally came from John Uhlemann, international folk dancer and radio >programmer: > > >This can be filed under modern folklore, I suppose. University City has a >tradition (at least 40 years old, I'm told) of singing Happy Birthday to the >tune of the "Song of the Volga Boatmen". Newcomers are often surprised to >hear >us regale some poor soul with: > >"Happy Birthday.... >Oh, happy birthday.... >Children Crying, People dying >happy birthday" > >I now find that other communities have similar versions. I had a chance to >compare these at Balkan Camp recently when Petur Iliev was serenaded with >the >East Coast version: > >"Happy birthday >oh Happy birthday, >One more day closer to death >happy birthday" > >No internal rhyme scheme, but punchy, nonetheless. It was enhanced by a >stamp and a loud "Unhhh!" after the first line. > >A discussion followed, during which it appears that the Philadelphia crown >has a large repertoire of largely scatological rhymed couplets which they >insert in the middle section. This requires repetition of that part of the >melodic line, breaking the classic structure, but the couplets themselves >have a certain cachet, e.g., > >"now you've reached the age you are >your demise cannot be far" > >"may the candles on your cake >burn like cities in your wake" > >"May your deeds with sword and ax >rival those with sheep and yaks" > >Etc. > >The things you learn at Balkan camp.... > >-John Uhlemann ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 00:20:15 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 00:16:53 -0700 (PDT) From: Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing Subject: Re: Fw: the U. City Happy Birthday song To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Message-ID: <01KKUAZGE5AGHOWR10-AT- SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Paul wrote: > I'm not sure this is exactly the place to post this I'm not sure either, but I'll play along. >, but I'm curious...has > this folk custom shown up where you are? (I've heard it a few times, always > in University City, MO.) It's well entrenched in Bay Area morris dance circles, which used to overlap country dance circles very extensively and still somewhat do. Alisa Dodson used to compose new couplets tailored to the birthday girl/boy (and perhaps still does, but now she's an out-of-towner). > "May your deeds with sword and ax > rival those with sheep and yaks" I prefer this to the version in common use here: "Hear the women wail and weep kill them all but save the sheep" -- Alan =============================================================================== Alan Winston --- WINSTON-AT- SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Disclaimer: I speak only for myself, not SLAC or SSRL Phone: 650/926-3056 Paper mail to: SSRL -- SLAC BIN 99, 2575 Sand Hill Rd, Menlo Park CA 94025 =============================================================================== ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 01:05:40 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 01:05:38 -0700 From: Howard Carlberg Subject: Re: Fw: the U. City Happy Birthday song To: ECD-AT- SSRL04.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Message-ID: <3D4B8EC4.36E041FF-AT- ix.netcom.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT References: <004101c23abc$4b9035c0$45284b0c-AT- paulstam> Paul Stamler wrote: > "Happy birthday > oh Happy birthday, > One more day closer to death > happy birthday" > "now you've reached the age you are > your demise cannot be far" > > "may the candles on your cake > burn like cities in your wake" This sounds like the norm for the west coast morris crowd, and has crept into other venues (Mendocino English Week) populated by morris folk. cherio, Howard -- Howard & Shirley Carlberg 878 Pauline Court Santa Rosa, CA 95401 (707) 528-2310 - phone in house ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 01:22:38 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 00:23:25 -0700 (PDT) From: Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing Subject: Oh, I get it now To: ecd-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Message-ID: <01KKUD5TAI4OHOWR10-AT- SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT ECDers -- This will be discursive, perhaps rambling, and may not get anywhere. You have been warned. Gene Murrow led what amounted to a caller's symposium at Mendocino English Week, and did a fine job of it. Anyway, we were on the subject of the historical background of the revival. As we've said before, Sharp looked at village dances ("Bonnets So Blue", etc, as seen in Country Dance Book 1 and the Community dances manual), derived a dance style from that, and then applied it (in an historically-inappropriate way) to Playford dances. [Usually this is where I go off on the rant about how RenFaire peasants doing first-edition Playford dances in hyper-Sharp mode may well be doing the best they can, but those weren't peasant dances and running flat out is unlikely to have been the country dance footwork, and I use the word "bogus" to describe the historical-ness of Sharp style. This is a different thought, if related.] (I know Gene reads the list, so he can correct me if I mis-paraphrase him.) Gene's point was that Sharp tripped himself up in his intended purpose of bringing pure English folk culture back to the folk by filling up his repertoire with complicated non-folk dances that are hard to learn with a pint of beer in you. The Playford-derived (or inspired) ECD repertoire is not the most congenial material for the one-night-stand, the wedding reception where you want to involve the family as well as the dancers, or the village celebration. (And in fact, Douglas Kennedy realized this and eventually more-or-less forswore that repertoire in favor of what went into the Community Dance Manuals project, which [I add now] is very much the same kind of thing that appears at English ceilidh dances now.) I've been thinking about this sporadically since; the rest of this is the result of my ruminations. (Blame me, not Gene.) We have an ECD repertoire that contains: 1) Dances that people went to dancing school to learn how to do 2) Dances that people practiced extensively to perform for others (whether or not the small-set Playford dances were used like Italian court dances in that regard, certainly Bray's theatrical afterpieces fall in this category) 3) Dances that don't fit the music clearly because a) Mr. Sharp didn't like the music that came with it and attached other music ("Hit and Miss", for example) or b) we don't do the stepping that _made_ it fit the music ("Draper's Maggot") or c) we don't play it as it was meant to be played 4) Dances that, taken cumulatively, require us to know 350 years' worth of different figures, some of which only show up in a handful of dances 5) Dances that blithely expect us to do closed-couple waltz ("Heidenroslein", "Margaret's Waltz", modern interpretation of "Northdown Waltz") or polka (every swing-and-change dance) whether or not we know it 6) Dances that fall to pieces if you turn the wrong way or get the timing wrong 7) Dances whose choreographers assume that in addition to the entire ECD lexicon we're also on top of the contra and square dance lexicon as well ("Levi Jackson", my own "MM") and 8) Easy, simple, vigorous dances, some of which the experienced dancers refuse to do. (If you doubt that last, think "rant".) There's clearly some effect from having this kind of repertoire, and from making a conscious effort to keep up this kind of repertoire. (Compared, say, to contra dancing, where the repertoire in common use is mostly recently-composed dances with similar esthetic qualities, and callers/choreographers happily tweak existing dances to make them fit the tastes of the people who are dancing now.) Put like this, it's kind of amazing that there are as many people who dig the whole range of ECD as there are. Or to put it another way, it's not surprising that ECD is a minority interest, even compared to contra dancing, which itself is certainly a minority interest compared to NASCAR racing (or curling, for that matter). So long as ECD is constituted the way it is, it'll always be a fractional, fringe, minority interest. (Which is fine; it just suggests that one should find some other mission in life than trying to make ECD as popular as birdwatching, let alone football.) Is it surprising that a lot of English dancers came to it with backgrounds in other kinds of dance? How many did ECD first and only? Is it surprising that many people who only go to their local ECD series never get very good? (The imperatives of running a dance as distinct from a class may mean that there isn't a lot of coaching; if you haven't taken other dance classes and haven't learned how to learn style, you're unlikely to learn it at your regular series. [In the Bay Area there's a spectrum; Jody McGeen is, thank heaven, not afraid to have her dance sometimes be a class, but this doesn't happen anywhere near as much at the other dances I frequent.] For a lot of people, developing good style is an extra-credit activity that you get from going to a stand-alone style workshop, or to dance camp, or by being on a performing team and getting coaching there - and a lot of people never do that. The sheer variety of dances keep plenty of dancers busy without having to think about falling forward if somebody shoots them, or lifting the egg out of the egg cup. (Now, this is also true for contradancing, and there are plenty of longtime contradancers who aren't very good, but there are also more first-timers or short-timers who are good almost immediately.) Is there a conclusion here? Maybe so. Some people (Don Bell, I think, is one) have simply started classes which are acknowledged as such. Give people a six-week course in ECD where they're actually expecting to pay attention and learn, rather than shut up and dance, and perhaps those people can join the wider ECD community filled with deserved confidence, and even being examples to others. Perhaps this would be a good recruiting approach for more communities. -- Alan =============================================================================== Alan Winston --- WINSTON-AT- SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Disclaimer: I speak only for myself, not SLAC or SSRL Phone: 650/926-3056 Paper mail to: SSRL -- SLAC BIN 99, 2575 Sand Hill Rd, Menlo Park CA 94025 =============================================================================== ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 06:37:07 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 09:36:03 -0400 From: Susan Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Re: Oh, I get it now To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Alan writes: >Anyway, we were on the subject of the historical background of the revival. As >we've said before, Sharp looked at village dances ("Bonnets So Blue", etc, as >seen in Country Dance Book 1 and the Community dances manual), derived a dance I was wondering....does anyone know where Ardern Holt's work fits into this picture? His 1907 work includes a bunch of country dances, along with some stunningly bad reconstructions of earlier material. I know nothing about him. Was he deriving from Sharp? Working independently? Deriving from someone else? Susan ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 06:58:06 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 09:57:55 -0400 From: Maryn McKenna Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Re: Fw: the U. City Happy Birthday song To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020803095242.00a346a0-AT- mindspring.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT References: <004101c23abc$4b9035c0$45284b0c-AT- paulstam> At 01:05 AM 8/3/02 -0700, Howard Carlberg wrote: [Volga Boatmen Birthday etc.] <and has crept into other venues (Mendocino English Week) populated by >morris folk.>> ditto for the East Coast, probably for the same reason (evidence of n=1: i learned it at ales but have heard it at Pinewoods weeks). here in the South, though, i have found almost no one who knows it who isn't also a transplant. that may be due to the concomitant lack of morris here, imagining morris as the vector for this. local dancer/folkies are more likely to sing a round such as "God danced the day you were born," which certainly swings more though is perhaps less, ummm, *traditional.* maryn atlanta, regrettably ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 07:17:01 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 06:45:33 -0700 (PDT) From: Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing Subject: Re: Oh, I get it now To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Message-ID: <01KKUPJ6PZF4HOWR10-AT- SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Susan(-AT- generalist.org) wrote: > Alan writes: > >Anyway, we were on the subject of the historical background of the revival. As > >we've said before, Sharp looked at village dances ("Bonnets So Blue", etc, as > >seen in Country Dance Book 1 and the Community dances manual), derived a dance > I was wondering....does anyone know where Ardern Holt's work fits into > this picture? His 1907 work includes a bunch of country dances, along > with some stunningly bad reconstructions of earlier material. I > know nothing about him. I never heard of him before this very second. A quick google search suggests that he was publishing as early as 1887. http://www.civilization.ca/hist/balls/i-4d1eng.html shows a fashion plate from the fifth edition of Holt's "Fancy Dresses Described", 1887, and pairs it with a photo of someone actually wearing a version of this amazing costume. The Maypole dance text quoted at http://www.geocities.com/pagan_rosehawk/maypole_dance.htm is too Merrie Englande to live; it amusingly contrasts introductory material about lusty peasants tramping off to the woods to get the Maypole with instructions for Maypole dancing referring to ladies (who "trip to the centre") and gentlemen. (And of course backdates the Maypole ribbon-plaiting to the dawn of time; I'd understood Maypoles to go back a long way but ribbon-plaiting to appear in England only in late Victorian times, possibly introduced by Mr. Ruskin.) He had a piece called "The Home Beautiful" in Ladies' Realm Magazine in 1901; although this is in a list that claims to be a list of fiction titles, other entries are non-fiction. and I'm inclined to think this is too. I see the writeup at the LoC page says "Holt's interpretations bear no resemblance to the originals; however, they do clearly illuminate the romanticized aura that began to surround such dances as the minuet during the nineteenth century." Stunningly bad, indeed - but illustrated with amusing photographs including some extremely Edwardian versions of Renaissance court dress. There are various books about reviving the "ancient dances" around 1900-1910; I don't know why that was such a hot topic then. (Rebellion against the telegraph and internal combustion engine?) In retrospect from here, Edwardian life seems pretty good. >Was he deriving from Sharp? Working > independently? Deriving from someone else? Looking at his Dargason reconstruction (where he explains that the Hay is described in Arbeau) it's pretty clear that he's not deriving from Sharp. He's got hold of a 1665 Playford and is using it as he's using any other source materials. Interestingly, the Playford dances are "Old English Dances"; a separate chapter on "Country Dances" includes The Maypole Dance, The Furry Dance, and "the cotillon", which is just an opportunity to plug another book of his: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This has always been a fashionable dance, but dates no further back than the reign of Charles X., originating, as so much connected with dancing does, in France. The waltz is its most important movement, though sometimes now associated with the polka. It is very much the mode in Society, and by its means many beautiful gifts are distributed. But there are several simple figures that can be given without accessories. There are, however, so many varieties of figures that they demand a volume to themselves, and one has been already issued* in which many hundreds are so minutely described and illustrated that they can be carried out quite easily. "The Cotillon." By Ardern Holt. Price 2s. 6d. London: Horace Cox, Windsor House, Bream's Buildings, E-C. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (I always thought cotillions were French and cotillons ("or, The German") were German, but he could be right.) -- Alan =============================================================================== Alan Winston --- WINSTON-AT- SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Disclaimer: I speak only for myself, not SLAC or SSRL Phone: 650/926-3056 Paper mail to: SSRL -- SLAC BIN 99, 2575 Sand Hill Rd, Menlo Park CA 94025 =============================================================================== ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 08:59:00 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 11:58:56 -0400 (EDT) From: Will Linden Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Re: Fw: the U. City Happy Birthday song To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Then there is the Dark Horde version: "May the cities in your wake/Burn like candles on your cake..." Will Linden wlinden-AT- panix.com http://www.ecben.net/ Magic Code: MAS/GD S++ W++ N+ PWM++ Ds/r+ A-> a++ C+ G- QO++ 666 Y ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 16:51:11 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 16:51:07 -0700 (PDT) From: Lyrl Catherine Ahern Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Re: Oh, I get it now To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: <20020803235107.2375.qmail-AT- web13801.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT --- Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing wrote: > We have an ECD repertoire that contains: .... > 8) Easy, simple, vigorous dances, some of which the > experienced dancers refuse to do. (If you doubt that last, > think "rant".) It is not that we "refuse" to do them. We are just getting older, and we have bad knees, feet that get re-injured if we bounce around too much, too much weight to dance energeti- cally, etc. Myself, I can't dance half-heartedly. At this point, rants and such are out of the question, because I can't physically dance them full-out anymore, and I find it impossible to do any less. I remember Nicolas Broadbridge complaining in a post that when he was calling here in Boston, we refused to do a skipchange of step. Well, if I do that, I re-injure the right metatarsal arch, and I don't get to dance at all for a few weeks. > Is it surprising that a lot of English dancers came to it > with backgrounds in other kinds of dance? How many did > ECD first and only? I was going to say I did, but then I remembered the Mexican Hat Dance in third grade in Seattle and and the square dance classes after school at the American School in Japan (Tokyo), taught by another Pan Am couple whose hobby it was. > Is it surprising that many people who only go to their > local ECD series never get very good? (The imperatives > of running a dance as distinct from a class may mean that > there isn't a lot of coaching....) [In the Bay Area > there's a spectrum; Jody McGeen is, thank heaven, not > afraid to have her dance sometimes be a class, but this > doesn't happen anywhere near as much at the other dances > I frequent.] I am glad to have learned from May Gadd, Genny Shimer, and others during that era. > The sheer variety of dances keeps plenty of dancers busy > without having to think about falling forward if somebody > shoots them, or lifting the egg out of the egg cup. I don't understand why anybody "learns dances" anymore, exept for demos. It made sense when the repertoire was small (in many cases, limited to what was recorded), but it is at least 4 times bigger now, and probably more (maybe 6 or 8?). It's more important, as my brother Andy often says, to learn danc*ing.* > Give people a six-week course in ECD where they're > actually expecting to pay attention and learn, rather than > shut up and dance.... I wish we could do something like that here. I think Barbara Finney did a course through Cambridge Adult Ed. a few years ago, but I wish we could do something regular through the Centre. It's hard to see people floundering and left to pick things up on the fly. Years ago I took a college friend to a dance weekend. Before we left home, I stood her up in the living room and taught her the basic figures. People at the weekend were amazed to hear that she had never danced before at all. Lyrl Ahern Boston Centre __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 20:29:35 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 20:29:31 -0700 (PDT) From: Andy Peterson Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Re: Oh, I get it now To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: <20020804032931.3721.qmail-AT- web20005.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT --- Lyrl Catherine Ahern wrote: > It's more important, as my brother Andy often says, > to learn danc*ing.* And that means learning how to do the figures so that you can put them together in any of the myriad of combinations available. I _do_ know many dances from memory (if the right tune is played), but I also have the ability to execute figures on the fly, e.g. in a Contra Medley at NEFFA. I couldn't do that if I didn't know the basic terminology. Knowing what a particular term means is more important than knowing what figure follows what in a specific dance. Andy __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 20:39:12 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 23:41:14 -0400 From: Mary Beth Goodman Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: birthday dirge To: ECD-AT- SSRL04.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Wow, it's not often I get to contribute to ECD. Here's what I send to my friends on their birthdays: >and then the birthday dirge. The sound of 100 people pounding wooden >tables in an open air dining hall for the is impressive. >Here you go, from the Birthday Dirge FAQ: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/music/birthday-dirge-faq/ THE BIRTHDAY DIRGE tune: "Volga Boatmen" Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday! 1. Now you've aged another year Now you know that Death is near Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday! 1a. So you've aged another year Now you know that Death is near 2. Children dying far and near They say that cancer's caused by bheer 2a. Children dying everywhere Women crying in despair 3. Death, destruction, and despair People dying everywhere 3a. Doom and gloom and dark despair People dying everywhere! 3b. Doom, destruction, and despair Grief and sorrow fill the air 3c. Doom, destruction, and despair People dying everywhere 3d. Death and gloom and black despair People dying everywhere 3e. Pain destruction and despair People dying everywhere 4. Typhoid, plague and polio Coffins lined up in a row 5. Now that you're the age you are Your demise cannot be far 5a. Now you are the age you are Your demise cannot be far 5b. When you've reached the age you are Your demise cannot be far Other Common Verses: 6. Black Death has just struck your town You yourself feel quite run-down 6a. Pestilence has struck your town You yourself feel quite run-down 7. Birthdays come but once a year Marking time as Death draws near 8. Long ago your hair turned grey Now it's falling out, they say 8a. Soon your hair will all turn grey Then fall out (or so they say) The Viking/Barbarian Verses: 9. Burn the castle and storm the keep Kill the women, but save the sheep 9a. Hear the women wail and weep Kill them all, but spare the sheep 9b. May the women wail and weep kill them all, but save the sheep 10. Burn, then rape by firelight Add _romance_ to life tonight 11. Indigestion's what you get From the enemies you 'et 12. May the candles on your cake Burn like cities in your wake. 12a. May the cities in your wake Burn like candles on your cake, 13. May the children in the street Be your barbequeing meat 13a. We love children, yes we do Baked or broiled or in a stew 14. May your deeds with sheep and yaks Equal those with sword and axe 14a. May your deeds with sword and axe Equal those with sheep and yaks 15. They stole your sword, your gold, your house Took your sheep but not your spouse 16. This one lesson you must learn First you pillage, then you burn 17. While you eat your birthday stew We will loot the town for you, The SCA Verses: 18. We brought linen, white as cloud Now we'll sit and sew your shroud 19. You're a period cook, its true Ask the beetles in the stew 20. Your servants steal, your wife's untrue Your children plot to murder you Other Verses: 21. Fear and gloom and darkness but No one found out you-know-what 21a. Just be glad the friends you've got Haven't found out you-know-what 22. I'm a leper, can't you see Have a birthday kiss from me 23. It's your birthday never fear You'll be dead this time next year 24. Now another year has passed Don't look now they're gaining fast! 24a. So far Death you have bypassed Don't look back, he's gaining fast 25. Now you've lived another year Age to you is like stale beer 26. Now your jail-bait days are done Let's go out and have some fun 27. See the wrinkles on your face Like the pattern of fine lace 28. Were I sitting in your shoes I'd go out and sing the blues 29. So you're 29 again Don't tell lies to your good friend 29a. Tho you're turning 29 Age to you is like fine wine 30. You must marry very soon Baby's due the next full moon 31. When you've reached this age you know That the mind is first to go ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 20:58:27 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 20:58:23 -0700 (PDT) From: Andy Peterson Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Re: Oh, I get it now To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: <20020804035823.5318.qmail-AT- web20010.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT --- Alan Winston wrote: > Is it surprising that many people who only go to their local ECD > series never get very good? That is a very generalized statement, as it depends upon the group and the teacher(s) in that group, as well as individuals. I've certainly danced with very good dancers who never go to other venues, as well as there being people that I see _everywhere_ who are just as bad a dancer as they were 20 years ago. > (The imperatives of running a dance as > distinct from a class may mean that there isn't a lot of coaching; > if you haven't taken other dance classes and haven't learned how to > learn style, you're unlikely to learn it at your regular series. I have _always_ contended that teaching dancING does not have to be exclusive from teaching dancES. It all depends upon _how_ you teach. I have an issue with "experienced" dancers who think it's boring and insulting when a caller/teacher takes a little extra time to teach people how to execute a figure or movement. (I use the quotes there because there are many who consider themselves experienced who still don't really have a clue because they don't bother to pay attention; especially true of some Contra dancers I know.) The idea is that the more people who know how to do it well, the more pleasure there is for everyone on the floor. Wouldn't you rather dance with a bunch of people who know what they are doing than have to struggle through a dance with people who haven't got a clue where they are going? Andy __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 02:18:20 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 02:05:21 -0700 (PDT) From: Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing Subject: Re: Oh, I get it now To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Message-ID: <01KKVTE85S6IHOWR10-AT- SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT > --- Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing > wrote: > > We have an ECD repertoire that contains: > .... > > 8) Easy, simple, vigorous dances, some of which the > > experienced dancers refuse to do. (If you doubt that > last, > > think "rant".) > It is not that we "refuse" to do them. We are just getting > older, and we have bad knees, feet that get re-injured if > we bounce around too much, too much weight to dance > energeti- > cally, etc. > Myself, I can't dance half-heartedly. At this point, > rants and such are out of the question, because I can't > physically dance them full-out anymore, and I find it > impossible to do any less. > I remember Nicolas Broadbridge complaining in a post > that when he was calling here in Boston, we refused to do a > skipchange of step. Well, if I do that, I re-injure the > right metatarsal arch, and I don't get to dance at all for > a few weeks. I didn't mean to imply any moral failure or lack of cooperative spirit in "refuse to do"; I just mean that all of you have to say is "and here's the beloved Morpeth Rant" and a lot of people sit down. (And if a caller insists on calling more than a couple of those, that caller will get booked less often.) From the point of view of the new person, who can more easily get his head around CDM-type material (which tends to be in the hard-on-the-joints end of the spectrum), he sees a lot of tribal elders sitting out the dances he can understand. > > Is it surprising that a lot of English dancers came to it > > with backgrounds in other kinds of dance? How many did > > ECD first and only? > I was going to say I did, but then I remembered the Mexican > Hat Dance in third grade in Seattle and and the square > dance classes after school at the American School in Japan > (Tokyo), taught by another Pan Am couple whose hobby it > was. Similarly, I had some square dance lessons in fourth grade and one semester of tap in college, and then found Regency dancing and dug it. (The limited repertoire of Regency-as-promulgated-by-John-Hertz evaded some of the problems I mention in the original post, and I was a confident country dancer by the time I came to mainstream ECD.) > > Is it surprising that many people who only go to their > > local ECD series never get very good? (The imperatives > > of running a dance as distinct from a class may mean that > > there isn't a lot of coaching....) [In the Bay Area > > there's a spectrum; Jody McGeen is, thank heaven, not > > afraid to have her dance sometimes be a class, but this > > doesn't happen anywhere near as much at the other dances > > I frequent.] > I am glad to have learned from May Gadd, Genny Shimer, and > others during that era. Indeed, but we're mostly not there now. I'm glad I went to Genny's classes at my first Mendocino week in 1987. > > The sheer variety of dances keeps plenty of dancers busy > > without having to think about falling forward if somebody > > shoots them, or lifting the egg out of the egg cup. > I don't understand why anybody "learns dances" anymore, > exept for demos. It made sense when the repertoire was > small (in many cases, limited to what was recorded), but it > is at least 4 times bigger now, and probably more (maybe 6 > or 8?). It's more important, as my brother Andy often says, > to learn danc*ing.* I didn't mean to suggest that people were too busy memorizing dances to learn dancing; rather, that people who aren't being taught dancing (as distinct from figures) can get as much mental work as they want just by trying to comprehend a new program every week. > > Give people a six-week course in ECD where they're > > actually expecting to pay attention and learn, rather > than > > shut up and dance.... > I wish we could do something like that here. I think > Barbara Finney did a course through Cambridge Adult Ed. a > few years ago, but I wish we could do something regular > through the Centre. It's hard to see people floundering and > left to pick things up on the fly. > Years ago I took a college friend to a dance weekend. > Before we left home, I stood her up in the living room and > taught her the basic figures. People at the weekend were > amazed to hear that she had never danced before at all. Again, learning figures before getting to a dance party helps calm anxious newcomers and helps reduce teaching time. But I think figures are getting successfully conveyed at most ECD evenings anyway; style is what's not getting across as well. (I'm talking about poor dancing because those are the points Lyrl responded to in my original post, but I think that was actually a sideline in my original post, which, while muddled, was more concerned with what we're offering newcomers than with how well they take it up.) -- Alan =============================================================================== Alan Winston --- WINSTON-AT- SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Disclaimer: I speak only for myself, not SLAC or SSRL Phone: 650/926-3056 Paper mail to: SSRL -- SLAC BIN 99, 2575 Sand Hill Rd, Menlo Park CA 94025 =============================================================================== ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 02:26:37 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 02:18:32 -0700 (PDT) From: Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing Subject: Re: Oh, I get it now To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Message-ID: <01KKVTOI515GHOWR10-AT- SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT > --- Lyrl Catherine Ahern wrote: > > It's more important, as my brother Andy often says, > > to learn danc*ing.* > And that means learning how to do the figures so that you can put > them together in any of the myriad of combinations available. I _do_ > know many dances from memory (if the right tune is played), but I > also have the ability to execute figures on the fly, e.g. in a Contra > Medley at NEFFA. I couldn't do that if I didn't know the basic > terminology. Knowing what a particular term means is more important > than knowing what figure follows what in a specific dance. In general, I agree with that (although I can think of exceptions; some RenFaire-oriented groups dance first-edition Playford socially without prompting, so it's "Eight up for Confess!" and then the music starts; those people need to know the order of the figures in the specific dance. Of course that's fallout from their performing the dances in public. However, you can teach figures on the fly in an ECD evening. (Heys may be troublesome, although I had pretty good results in Berkeley the other night with a bunch of newcomers and double figure eights, mirror heys, and then heys for three. We crashed and burned in a dance with heys for four, but it was going really well up 'til then.) What people need to dance this stuff well is good carriage, a sense of the musical phrase, appropriate degrees of arm tension, the ability to tell left from right, a willingness to connect with the partner of the moment, and the ability to remember names of figures. (That may not be an exhaustive list, but I'm exhausted at the moment.) What they get at regular dances, in my experience, is occasional discussion about arm tension and lots of geography. -- Alan =============================================================================== Alan Winston --- WINSTON-AT- SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Disclaimer: I speak only for myself, not SLAC or SSRL Phone: 650/926-3056 Paper mail to: SSRL -- SLAC BIN 99, 2575 Sand Hill Rd, Menlo Park CA 94025 =============================================================================== ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 04:35:40 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 07:34:37 -0400 From: Susan Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Re: Oh, I get it now To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU CC: susan-AT- generalist.org Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT I keep circling this thread with great interest looking for a line to tag on to. I'm wildly unqualified to talk about the typical evening of modern ECD. My assigned vocation in life appears to be teacher-of- beginners, though, and I'm about to embark on a series of monthly workshops on Regency (1810's) dancing which will include a significant amount of country dancing. So, rambling all over the place to no special point... Alan writes: >However, you can teach figures on the fly in an ECD evening. (Heys may be >troublesome, although I had pretty good results in Berkeley the other night >with a bunch of newcomers and double figure eights, mirror heys, and then heys >for three. We crashed and burned in a dance with heys for four, but it was >going really well up 'til then.) What people need to dance this stuff well is >good carriage, a sense of the musical phrase, appropriate degrees of arm >tension, the ability to tell left from right, a willingness to connect with the >partner of the moment, and the ability to remember names of figures. (That may >not be an exhaustive list, but I'm exhausted at the moment.) What they get at >regular dances, in my experience, is occasional discussion about arm tension >and lots of geography. I'm looking at the requirements needed for Regency country dancing, and along with Alan's list above, coming up with two or three others: - knowledge of the basic step-sequences and a couple of decent setting steps - ability to apply those steps to the figures - ability to learn a dance on the fly by which I mean: - the dancing-master says the figures once - the lead couple [only] begins the dance - everyone else picks it up by watching as it "comes down" and, for at least a selected group of people, - the ability to make up dances on the fly, or memorize created ones, since the leading lady (or gent, depending on source) "calls" the dance - Regency styling (which is not the same as MECD styling) Obviously this makes knowing a set repertoire of figures absolutely critical - I think if you are trying for the rest of the above, you do not have the luxury of teaching figures during an actual evening. There's too much else for people to handle without having to deal with unfamiliar ones. Luckily, Regency country dance had a relatively limited number of figures that were commonly used (as opposed to the lovely fancy ones you see in the manuals, which almost never show up in actual dances.) The dances themselves are interchangeable; I have at least one manual that spells this out explicitly (paraphrasing: that you can dance any dance of a given length to any tune of the same length.) This is reinforced by the recycling of dances in the manuals to go with multiple different tunes. I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that all those manuals of "Twenty New Country Dances" are misleading to the modern ear in the way they use the word "dance". They don't mean dance choreographies; those are noticeably not-new in most of them (sometimes the same choreography is assigned to multiple dances in the same manual!) They mean new tunes to dance to. This impression is reinforced by the common subtitle "with their figures", which says to me that "dance" refers to the tune, not the figures. So I don't want people to learn particular dances - in fact, that's a problem, since if you program yourself to a particular piece of music it would throw you to then have to do a different dance to it every time. I'm trying to figure out how to teach this flexibility, and - worse yet - how to apply it in a formal ball situation where I will likely have walk-ins with little or no experience. One doesn't need a large step-repertoire for this; you can master only five or six and be an adequate if not especially stylish Regency dancer. And while I'm teaching the steps to people who show up to learn them (before the regular class), I know from experience that a combination of people stepping and people just walking or skipping through these dances does work, so my priority for the beginners is the format: learning the figures well enough to do them with no walk-through and not being terrified at having random recombinations of figures thrown at them. So, part of this involves ruthlessly limiting even the already-limited repertoire of figures so that I can concentrate on getting what's almost more of a psychological attitude than a dance skill into people. I also have to teach dance-composition to at least a group of clever ladies, and I'm finding Wilson's pages and pages of charts suddenly useful for this, but I'm also setting a modest goal of getting people to compose just 32-bar dances on the spot with a selection of my limited figure repertoire. I guess where this ties loosely into this thread is Alan's (or Gene's via Alan's) comment about the need to learn a 350-year repertoire of figures. I've made a decision that even to learn a one-decade repertoire is not a suitable short-term goal for this project, and am limiting the figures even more strictly in the interest of achieving the format. A 350-year repertoire of figures, even leaving aside the need to learn three or four distinct styles of dancing to do them, strikes me as an utter impossibility if one wishes to perform the dances in a historic format (context? setting? I keep digging for a suitable label for what I'm trying for. Style is not it.) I can see why that would lead to a lessening of emphasis on other elements of dancing. But my tradeoff is that I want to emphasize other elements and am doing it at the expense of the figure repertoire. I wonder if this would mean MECD'ers would find it dull? My experience with the occasional MECD'er who turns up at a workshop is that they are very, very good at figures, both the ones they know and at picking up new ones fast, but have a lot of trouble, or perhaps a lack of interest, in adapting their style - notably, in turning off the "flow" of figures from one into the other, which I do not think is not particularly characteristic of this era of dance. To summarize: I think that one cannot do (1) a huge variety of figures in (2) constantly changing new combinations and (3) still work on teaching much style. One of the three is going to get de-emphasized. I'm making it variety; there appears to be an observation that in MECD it's style. I am not offering any opinion on whether this is a valid observation or not, so please don't transmute this into "Susan knocks MECD for lack of style." Finally, as to the reason why I'm working these choices and on making Regency a live and functioning format for dancing: Because We Think It's Fun To Do Historic Dance As Correctly As We Can. I expect some people won't get that, or will actively disagree, but I'd love to be spared snide comments on why on earth anyone would bother, 'kay? I promise not to ask you the same question. Susan (and if anyone's interested in becoming part of this project, I'm looking at first (mostly) Sundays in NYC starting in January. And it won't just be country dancing. Wanna sauteuse?) ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 07:21:13 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 10:06:09 -0400 From: Allison M Thompson Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Re:Ardern Holt To: ECD-AT- SSRL04.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU CC: ECD-AT- SSRL04.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: <20020804.102041.-2057543.4.AllisonThompson-AT- juno.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT I don't know much about Holt, but from reading between the lines of his Ancient Dances, I suspect that he was a fashionable dancing master who worked with Nellie Chaplin, who was an earlier reconstructor of court dances (branles, galliards, etc.) as well as country dances--she beat Sharp to publication on at least a few of these, such as Chelsea Reach. Allison ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 07:21:20 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 10:20:41 -0400 From: Allison M Thompson Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Re: Maypole dancing To: ECD-AT- SSRL04.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU CC: ECD-AT- SSRL04.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: <20020804.102041.-2057543.5.AllisonThompson-AT- juno.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Roy Judge has shown in his work, “Tradition and the Plaited Maypole Dance,” in Traditional Dance, vol. 2, edited by Theresa Buckland, (Crewe and Alsager College of Higher Education, 1983), pp. 1-21, that the plaited maypole dance was developed by Victorian theatre dancing masters around 1837. The dance, often performed on the stage in conjunction with morris, proved to be a big hit, and gradually moved out to other venues, such as well-dressings and other public and private festivals. John Ruskin, whose musings on art and life were very popular in England and America, developed connections with the principal of Whitelands Teachers' Training College in Chelsea, London. In 1888 he persuaded the principal to transform the annual prize-giving event to a May Queen event. The nicest or “likeablest” senior girl was to be secretly elected by her classmates. Ruskin awarded the winner a gold cross and a complete bound set of his works, of which she was to keep one volume (Sesame and Lilies) and give the others to her friends. The Queen wore an elaborate & unique gown (most of which are still owned by the College.) The event gradually added a procession of the previously elected queens, all decked in their elaborate gowns. As part of the festivities, the girls danced the maypole dance for the Queen. Ruskin (and the principal of Whitelands, who quickly perceived what a great advertising stunt this all was) did much to popularize the maypole dance and connect it to a may queen, but Ruskin did not invent or import the dance. This may be a good point for a shameless self-plug for my article, "I'm to be Queen of the May, Mother! May Day Festivals in America, 1875-1993," which should appear later this year or early next in a volume tentatively titled, Calendar Customs, edited by Georgina Boyes and to be published by Francis Boutles. Allison Thompson ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 07:45:42 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 10:45:38 -0400 From: "Stephen D. Corrsin" Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: McLuhan was right about ECD To: ecd-digest-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU BCC: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT This is a response, sort of, to Mr Winston's survey of how many different types or styles of dances and dancing get stuffed into the ECD bag these days. I would suggest that Marshall McLuhan was right on the money when he said about ECD: It's anything you can get away with.* Now, to set up a simple "if/ then" statement. This perhaps can be interpreted in this context as: if the crowd of dancers, expecting ECD per the flyer or other mode of advertising, does *NOT* rise up in fury, rush the stage, and rend the caller/ teacher/ leader limb from limb; then you've got ECD. I feel better now, too. xxxo Steve C. Steve Corrsin 5166 Patrick Rd. West Bloomfield MI 48322 tel 248-661-6283 fax 248-661-6288 *ps Of course, McLuhan is supposed to have said that about Art in general. pps Not ECD. ppps Nor Munisteri, I guess. _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 08:22:41 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 11:21:36 -0400 From: Susan Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Re: Maypole dancing To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU CC: susan-AT- generalist.org Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Allison Thompson writes: >Roy Judge has shown in his work, Tradition and the Plaited Maypole >Dance, in Traditional Dance, vol. 2, edited by Theresa Buckland, ( >Crewe and Alsager College of Higher Education, 1983), pp. 1-21, that >the plaited maypole dance was developed by Victorian theatre dancing >masters around 1837. A particular dance, yes, but ribbon-plaiting around a pole or tree as a dance goes back at least three centuries further in Europe. I don't know if they were reinventing the wheel or drawing on an unbroken folk tradition, but it *had* been done before. Susan ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 09:00:49 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 09:00:42 -0700 From: Paul / Victoria Bestock Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: dancing the dances well To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.1.20020803195127.00a2d7c0-AT- mail.oz.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT >Alan said, > > > Give people a six-week course in ECD where they're > > actually expecting to pay attention and learn, rather > > than shut up and dance.... and again quoting Alan, " learning figures before getting to a dance party helps calm anxious newcomers and helps reduce teaching time. But I think figures are getting successfully conveyed at most ECD evenings anyway; style is what's not getting across as well." Agreed! This seems like a good time to mention that if you are in the Seattle area this fall and winter, you can come to classes where good dancing will be taught. These classes will be evenings of dancing to great music, but the focus is on dancing WELL, and not just on learning figures. Style is taught as an integral part of the figure, and dances for each evening are selected for their opportunity to practice the skill being taught that evening. The classes are Tuesday nights starting Sept. 24. from 7:30-9:30 PM at the University Friends Center. They are taught by Charlene Kern and myself. (Charlene is the mezzo for whom you sent me song words last year so some classes will include dancing to her divine singing) Three special evenings are planned during the series: Oct 15 will be focused on Portland ball dances and will be taught by Mary Devlin of Portland. Nov 19 is an evening of dances to Purcell tunes some of which will be sung by Charlene. Nov. 5 is a class in Scottish dances for English dancers and will be taught by Irene Paterson. There is no class Dec 17,21 or Jan 1. The series ends Jan 14, by which time you will be able to stun everyone with your magnificent dancing at the Seattle English Coutnry Ball which occurs the following weekend (MLK weekend) Laurie Andres, Julie King, Anita Anderson, Dave Bartley, Joe Bowbeer, Kimberley McKittrick and Sande Gillette are band leaders for the classes. So if you already know all about ECD style, you'll probably want to come anyway, just to have more opportunities to dance to glorious music. And we do love to have experienced dancers modeling beautiful dancing for and with the beginners, so we make efforts to keep the teaching efficient, so experienced dancers enjoy themselves too. All classes are fragrance-free. See the Seattle Ball or Cascadia websites for more info on how to accomplish this. Victoria Bestock, Seattle ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 13:19:32 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 13:13:55 -0700 (PDT) From: Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing Subject: Re: Maypole dancing To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Message-ID: <01KKWGHZ87VIHOWR10-AT- SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT ECDers -- I'd like to thank Allison Thompson for her correction about the origins of the plaited maypole dance in England and the connection with John Ruskin. I was going from the top of my head and I'm glad to have someone who knows whereof she speaks produce the facts. > This may be a good point for a shameless self-plug for my article, "I'm > to be Queen of the May, Mother! May Day Festivals in America, > 1875-1993," which should appear later this year or early next in a volume > tentatively titled, Calendar Customs, edited by Georgina Boyes and to be > published by Francis Boutles. I shall look forward to it. -- Alan =============================================================================== Alan Winston --- WINSTON-AT- SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Disclaimer: I speak only for myself, not SLAC or SSRL Phone: 650/926-3056 Paper mail to: SSRL -- SLAC BIN 99, 2575 Sand Hill Rd, Menlo Park CA 94025 =============================================================================== ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 14:08:18 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 13:19:41 -0700 (PDT) From: Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing Subject: Re: Oh, I get it now To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Message-ID: <01KKWI7FUC4OHOWR10-AT- SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Susan(-AT- generalist.org) wrote: > I'm looking at the requirements needed for Regency country dancing, and > along with Alan's list above, coming up with two or three others: > - knowledge of the basic step-sequences and a couple of decent setting steps > - ability to apply those steps to the figures > - ability to learn a dance on the fly by which I mean: > - the dancing-master says the figures once > - the lead couple [only] begins the dance > - everyone else picks it up by watching as it "comes down" > and, for at least a selected group of people, > - the ability to make up dances on the fly, or memorize created ones, > since the leading lady (or gent, depending on source) "calls" the dance > - Regency styling (which is not the same as MECD styling) I think this is a fabulous project, and I wish I could participate. (NYC is a little far from SF to make that likely.) When I lead a Regency ball, I'm keenly conscious of the anomalousness of my position. (If it were a public ball at Bath there'd be a master of ceremonies, but you wouldn't have a _caller_, and you certainly wouldn't at a private event (like Mr. Bingley's ball at Netherfield).) We usually come up with some rationale to excuse my presence. > Obviously this makes knowing a set repertoire of figures absolutely > critical - I think if you are trying for the rest of the above, you do > not have the luxury of teaching figures during an actual evening. Indeed. > There's too much else for people to handle without having to deal with > unfamiliar ones. Luckily, Regency country dance had a relatively > limited number of figures that were commonly used (as opposed to the > lovely fancy ones you see in the manuals, which almost never show up > in actual dances.) So you won't be doing the true lover's knot? Darn. (You get the idea of which were commonly used by comparing the figures in published dances to the figures in, eg, Wilson?) > I guess where this ties loosely into this thread is Alan's (or Gene's > via Alan's) comment about the need to learn a 350-year repertoire of > figures. I've made a decision that even to learn a one-decade > repertoire is not a suitable short-term goal for this project, and am > limiting the figures even more strictly in the interest of achieving > the format. Seems entirely sensible. >A 350-year repertoire of figures, even leaving aside the > need to learn three or four distinct styles of dancing to do them, > strikes me as an utter impossibility if one wishes to perform the > dances in a historic format (context? setting? I keep digging for a > suitable label for what I'm trying for. Style is not it.) Fashion? Manner? Spirit? Flavor? Flava? > But my tradeoff is that I want to emphasize other elements and am > doing it at the expense of the figure repertoire. I wonder if this > would mean MECD'ers would find it dull? It would depend on the MECDer. (That's obvious, of course, but what I mean is that this is a different enough activity from mainstream ECD that I don't think one's feeling about mainstream ECD will be closely correlated to whether you enjoy this or not. I think I would really dig it, but for a set of reasons that only partially overlap the reasons I enjoy a Playford Ball.) > My experience with the > occasional MECD'er who turns up at a workshop is that they are very, > very good at figures, both the ones they know and at picking up new > ones fast, but have a lot of trouble, or perhaps a lack of interest, > in adapting their style - notably, in turning off the "flow" of > figures from one into the other, which I do not think is not > particularly characteristic of this era of dance. I think for the recreational dancer, style is what you do without thinking about it. (The facility to change styles as appropriate is part of the qualitative difference between recreational and professional.) This makes it extremely difficult to change, because you need to bring it up to the level of consciousness and do something else. It's easier to do things in a different style if they're very different kinds of things. (Thus, morris teams that do a bunch of different traditions but they somehow all look the same, or at least show occasional problems like starting a Ducklington dance with a Bampton single step. There's enough contextual difference between morris and sword that the same guys have no problems with a different carriage and step for sword.) (Vintage dance seems to select for people who can manage this kind of change well; the same dancers will use different styling for 'teens foxtrot and thirties foxtrot.) Your environment -figures with the same names, the same kind of tunes, the fact that it _is_ ECD- is probably contextually similar enough that it gives the MECD person little help in changing style. > To summarize: I think that one cannot do (1) a huge variety of figures > in (2) constantly changing new combinations and (3) still work on > teaching much style. One of the three is going to get de-emphasized. > I'm making it variety; there appears to be an observation that in MECD > it's style. I am not offering any opinion on whether this is a valid > observation or not, so please don't transmute this into "Susan knocks > MECD for lack of style." This is something like "Fast, Cheap, Good: Choose any two." > Susan > (and if anyone's interested in becoming part of this project, I'm > looking at first (mostly) Sundays in NYC starting in January. And > it won't just be country dancing. Wanna sauteuse?) I wish I could (become part of this project, that is; I've already sauteused [and jeteused]). I'd also kind of like to try it out here, but I think having an existing Regency group that expects something different is almost a handicap in starting such a project. Please let us know how this goes; maybe I can piggyback on your work later. -- Alan =============================================================================== Alan Winston --- WINSTON-AT- SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Disclaimer: I speak only for myself, not SLAC or SSRL Phone: 650/926-3056 Paper mail to: SSRL -- SLAC BIN 99, 2575 Sand Hill Rd, Menlo Park CA 94025 =============================================================================== ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 15:00:27 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 18:07:00 -0400 From: Tom Siess Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: a catch up To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: <000801c23c03$42378b20$13044443-AT- sympatico.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Hi there, Haven't heard from you in a while (excepting the ecd list which I don't usually read) and this is not regarding the birthday dirge! We have bought a lot and hope to be building by the end of Aug - or early Sept. It's all quite exciting and we look forward to having you visit the new house for New Years, or whenever! We leave on Fri. for Pinewoods and we hope, on our return, to find the building permit nearly "there" so we can get on with it. We'll keep you posted! Mr. Isaac had an adventure last week: he, somehow, got out on Thursday am and we didn't get him back until Sun. evening. We had put posters up on utility poles and fortunately, a very kind lady saw it and when she and her friend were out walking, they saw Isaac, went back to the poster, got our phone number, etc. He was quite scared, had lost about 3 lbs., had diarrhea for a few days but seems to have recovered now. It was awful for us! Lilli was beside herself, we were terrified that someone would steal him or hurt him, it rained and thundered and he hates that, it was awful. But, all seems well now. We hope never to have another adventure like that again, and I'm sure he feels the same way! So, how are you guys? How's the job, quilting, mountain climbling, cats, let us hear from you. Love, Anne ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 15:35:22 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 18:35:33 -0400 From: Blank/DeVore Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Re: Oh, I get it now To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: <3D4DAC35.3E43CBB3-AT- sprintmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="Boundary_(ID_wjhsdgcxoz7AnweBOhwIYw)" References: --Boundary_(ID_wjhsdgcxoz7AnweBOhwIYw) Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Dear Susan, Here's what the Library of Congress has to say about Holt, in agreement with your assessment: > How to dance the revived ancient dances. By Ardern Holt. > > Holt, Ardern. > > CREATED/PUBLISHED > London, H. Cox, 1907. > > SUMMARY > Holt begins his discussion with a history of "chorography" and the work of famed eighteenth-century dancing masters and choreographers Guillaume-Louis Pecour, > Pierre Beauchamps, and Raoul-Auger Feuillet. Several pages of dances written in the dance notation system devised by Feuillet are included. Holt's "reconstruction" > of the pavan includes the appropriate music from Thoinot Arbeau's 1588 manual, Orchesographie. For decades, the inclusion of the notation and music was > deceiving to many unsuspecting people who used Holt's manual to reconstruct dances for the Renaissance and Baroque. Holt's interpretations bear no resemblance > to the originals; however, they do clearly illuminate the romanticized aura that began to surround such dances as the minuet during the nineteenth century. Line > drawings and photographs enhance Holt's manual. > I've never found anything to associate Holt with Sharp. Also, I've seen Holt referred to as feminine. Holt seems to have been a scrivener who turned his/her hand to anything that might have turned a penny. A writer of short stories, a book on fancy dress for the ball, a collection of dances (morris) for children's parties. I've found no biographical information, only writings spanning the two decades from 1897 to 1907. Please let me know if you discover anything. Albert --Boundary_(ID_wjhsdgcxoz7AnweBOhwIYw) Content-type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Dear Susan,

Here's what the Library of Congress has to say about Holt, in agreement with your assessment: 

How to dance the revived ancient dances. By Ardern Holt.

Holt, Ardern. 

CREATED/PUBLISHED
London, H. Cox, 1907.

SUMMARY
Holt begins his discussion with a history of "chorography" and the work of famed eighteenth-century dancing masters and choreographers Guillaume-Louis Pecour,
Pierre Beauchamps, and Raoul-Auger Feuillet. Several pages of dances written in the dance notation system devised by Feuillet are included. Holt's "reconstruction"
of the pavan includes the appropriate music from Thoinot Arbeau's 1588 manual, Orchesographie. For decades, the inclusion of the notation and music was
deceiving to many unsuspecting people who used Holt's manual to reconstruct dances for the Renaissance and Baroque. Holt's interpretations bear no resemblance
to the originals; however, they do clearly illuminate the romanticized aura that began to surround such dances as the minuet during the nineteenth century. Line
drawings and photographs enhance Holt's manual.


I've never found anything to associate Holt with Sharp. Also, I've seen Holt referred to as feminine.

Holt seems to have been a scrivener who turned his/her hand to anything that might have turned a penny. A writer of short stories, a book on fancy dress for the ball, a collection of dances (morris) for children's parties. I've found no biographical information, only writings spanning the two decades from 1897 to 1907.

Please let me know if you discover anything.

Albert --Boundary_(ID_wjhsdgcxoz7AnweBOhwIYw)-- ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 15:51:03 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 15:50:59 -0700 (PDT) From: Benjamin Stein Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Re: a catch up To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: <20020804225059.99818.qmail-AT- web20701.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT --- Tom Siess wrote: > Hi there, > > Haven't heard from you in a while (excepting the ecd list > which I don't > usually read) and this is not regarding the birthday > dirge! > > We have bought a lot and hope to be building by the end > of Aug - or early > Sept. It's all quite exciting and we look forward to > having you visit the > new house for New Years, or whenever! We leave on Fri. > for Pinewoods and we > hope, on our return, to find the building permit nearly > "there" so we can > get on with it. We'll keep you posted! > > Mr. Isaac had an adventure last week: he, somehow, got > out on Thursday am > and we didn't get him back until Sun. evening. We had > put posters up on > utility poles and fortunately, a very kind lady saw it > and when she and her > friend were out walking, they saw Isaac, went back to the > poster, got our > phone number, etc. He was quite scared, had lost about 3 > lbs., had diarrhea > for a few days but seems to have recovered now. It was > awful for us! Lilli > was beside herself, we were terrified that someone would > steal him or hurt > him, it rained and thundered and he hates that, it was > awful. But, all > seems well now. We hope never to have another adventure > like that again, > and I'm sure he feels the same way! > > So, how are you guys? How's the job, quilting, mountain > climbling, cats, > let us hear from you. > Love, > Anne > Dear Anne: Retired fiove years ago. Dot was the spinner, quilter (a bit) and knitter in the family and, as you probably know, passed away four years afo this month. With two artificial knees I am afraid my mountin climbing days are somewhat over though I do a bit of hiking now and then. Still traveling and painting watercolors as well as teaching Scottish Country dance and occassional teaching of English CD. Had heart by pass surgery in December but doing fine and expect to be back skiing this winter (actually got in eigh days of skiing late last winter though stuck to novice trails). Otherwise fine. Have been remodeling my house since Dot's death, loved her dearly but god she was a pack rat! Ben Stein __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 18:53:09 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 21:42:55 -0400 From: "Linda M. Nelson" Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Re: Oh, I get it now To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT References: <20020803235107.2375.qmail-AT- web13801.mail.yahoo.com> Lyrl Ahern wrote: >... It's hard to see people floundering and >left to pick things up on the fly. Some version of floundering may be necessary to learning any completely new activity, although it's helpful to have a better option available. A class is good, *if* people will come. (I think earlier discussions on this list pointed out that those who really need the classes are unlikely to attend.) The best bet i've seen is good modelling: that is, the experienced dancers are (hopefully) setting the example for others to follow... nothing can substitute for that, in any case... more is "caught" than "taught". It's also possible, if not overdone, for a dance leader to put in one or two small style points per evening. Not much and perhaps not very noticeable, but if the same group attends for a while, the effect can be cumulative. Just my two cents worth - Linda ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 18:59:28 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 21:59:18 -0400 From: Patricia Ruggiero Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: RE: a catch up To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: <000801c23c23$b5afbb70$a5c4c943-AT- g9tfz> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT It's reassuring to know that the person to whom Anne's post was directed recognized himself! Nice to hear your news, Anne. Sorry Howard and I won't be at Pinewoods this year. Pat Ruggiero (and Howard Markham) ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 19:07:01 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 22:09:14 -0400 From: Mary Beth Goodman Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: RE: a catch up To: ECD-AT- SSRL04.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT References: <000801c23c23$b5afbb70$a5c4c943-AT- g9tfz> >It's reassuring to know that the person to whom Anne's post was directed >recognized himself! > >Nice to hear your news, Anne. Sorry Howard and I won't be at Pinewoods this >year. > >Pat Ruggiero >(and Howard Markham) LOL -- I hope Anne was talking to me -- I sent her a long email in response! I'm sorry I won't be at Pinewoods this year too. It's been a few years due to employment issues. Hope to get back on track soon with a good combination of paycheck and vacation time. Mary Beth ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 22:32:25 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 22:32:21 -0700 (PDT) From: Andy Peterson Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Re: Oh, I get it now To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: <20020805053221.13518.qmail-AT- web20004.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT --- Alan Winston wrote: > ...I had pretty good results in Berkeley the other night with a > bunch of newcomers and double figure eights, mirror heys, and then > heys for three. We crashed and burned in a dance with heys for > four, but it was going really well up 'til then.) Interestingly, most contra dancers would have trouble with anything other than a four person hey. I was taught that you keep passing alternate sholders until you come out on the end, turn toward the shoulder that you came out with, come back in with the same shoulder and make a big enough loop at the end that you don't crash into the next person coming at you. This instruction works no matter how many people are in the hey. Once you learn the formation, a simple "Hey" from the caller works for any number of people. > ...the ability to tell left from right... Granted, it helps, but I've had some favorite partners who've had trouble with this one. I just have to give them extra directional attention if they're having trouble. I particularly remember Shrewsbury Lasses when Reel Nutmeg turned it into a duple-minor for as many as will in the middle of one of our NEFFA suites. It started out as a three couple set as it is usually done, then we added couples. I think the whole group had to work harder than usual on that dance but my partner had particular problems. Andy __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 00:00:46 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 01:59:23 -0500 From: Paul Stamler Subject: Re: Oh, I get it now To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Message-ID: <004e01c23c4d$a1b77b60$b02a4b0c-AT- paulstam> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT References: <20020805053221.13518.qmail-AT- web20004.mail.yahoo.com> ----- Original Message ----- From: Andy Peterson <> Not any more, I suspect; there's at least one, maybe two "double contras" making the rounds, where two contra-lines (four columns total) merge and do a hey for eight across the hall. To add to the fun, one alternates between positions every time through. The folks at our local contra picked it up without fuss. Other parts of the dance were tougher, really. Peace, Paul ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 04:06:10 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 07:05:07 -0400 From: Susan Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Re: Oh, I get it now To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU CC: susan-AT- generalist.org Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT (This is starting to drift seriously off-topic, but I plead that the list-owner is encouraging me!) Alan writes: >I think this is a fabulous project, and I wish I could participate. (NYC is a >little far from SF to make that likely.) When I lead a Regency ball, I'm >keenly conscious of the anomalousness of my position. (If it were a public >ball at Bath there'd be a master of ceremonies, but you wouldn't have a >_caller_, and you certainly wouldn't at a private event (like Mr. Bingley's >ball at Netherfield).) We usually come up with some rationale to excuse my >presence. I think Wilson mentions the use of floor managers, whose apparent function is to assist the Master of the Ceremonies in seeing that thing go smoothly. That isn't the term he uses, but I don't have time right this sec to go look it up. The model I am using is one of Wilson's public assemblies, not a ball in a private home (funny, no one I know has a ballroom big enough for this...) And you think *you* have a problem....I'm female! Gack. Mistress of the Ceremonies is even worse than caller. :) I've thought about bringing in an experienced ball preceptor to take the role, but this creates the significant danger that the event will be perceived as *his* event (he being prominent for putting on balls and such), and I would sort of like to get credit for my project. (Mine! Mine!) This is a typical problem for women doing historical dance, alas; I'll have to deal with it over and over. >So you won't be doing the true lover's knot? Darn. (You get the idea >of which were commonly used by comparing the figures in published >dances to the figures in, eg, Wilson?) Yes. And even Wilson almost never uses his own fancy figures - I think I've only actually seen the knot once or twice. Non-Wilson manuals are even more limited in repertoire. I wish Keller would become interested in doing a figure database for early 19thc English manuals as he did for Playford and American ones; it's a needed project but I find it totally uninspiring. I'm doing figure databasing for waltz country dances, but that's quite enough for me. (And waltz c.d.'s are a very interesting problem. It's not clear to me that they are properly done with waltz steps, or even in triple time for that matter. And won't *that* throw the Duke of Kent's Waltzers into a tailspin! Pardon me while I ooze raw research theories here.) >> dances in a historic format (context? setting? I keep digging for a >> suitable label for what I'm trying for. Style is not it.) > >Fashion? Manner? Spirit? Flavor? Flava? Manner, perhaps. >It would depend on the MECDer. (That's obvious, of course, but what I >mean is that this is a different enough activity from mainstream ECD >that I don't think one's feeling about mainstream ECD will be closely >correlated to whether you enjoy this or not. I think I would really >dig it, but for a set of reasons that only partially overlap the >reasons I enjoy a Playford Ball.) I've had complaints before that boil down in essence to "this isn't MECD." Which is of course inarguable. It's not intended to be. It just strikes me as an unfair basis for complaint, like complaining that baseball isn't football. >I think for the recreational dancer, style is what you do without thinking >about it. (The facility to change styles as appropriate is part of the >qualitative difference between recreational and professional.) This makes it >extremely difficult to change, because you need to bring it up to the level of >consciousness and do something else. It's easier to do things in a different >style if they're very different kinds of things. (Thus, morris teams that do a >[snip] >sword.) (Vintage dance seems to select for people who can manage this kind of >change well; the same dancers will use different styling for 'teens foxtrot and >thirties foxtrot.) Your environment -figures with the same names, the same >kind of tunes, the fact that it _is_ ECD- is probably contextually similar >enough that it gives the MECD person little help in changing style. Hmm, perhaps, and I do have a similar problem when I do MECD; I keep shifting between historic styles, none of which precisely match MECD style. I can't seem to get MECD into my head as a separate style; the range of the dances undermines me. I've also seen vintage dancers who have trouble style-shifting, most often coming in from modern ballroom and bringing its mannerisms along, and there's at least one who comes to mind who is *always* dancing the same sort of tangolike dance, no matter what dance he is actually doing. He's a superb dancer and leader, so he's fun to dance with regardless, but it's always one dance. I can't figure out exactly what its roots are - maybe Argentine tango. And of course the tendency of vintage dancers (self included) to munge their 1890's waltzing into 1860's waltzing is notorious - once you get spinning the sensation is so similar it's easy to just shift your feet into the other, and most of us learned 1860's first, and much more intensely than 1890's, so it becomes the default. >I wish I could (become part of this project, that is; I've already >sauteused [and jeteused]). I'd also kind of like to try it out here, >but I think having an existing Regency group that expects something >different is almost a handicap in starting such a project. Please let >us know how this goes; maybe I can piggyback on your work later. I think having an existing Regency group doing what is in effect MECD is probably a big handicap - you have to get people to change what they are doing within the same context. Tough nut to crack, especially since they presumably *like* what they're doing. I'm starting to cautiously experiment with the dances at conventions, but only ones with no prior Regency tradition - people don't know enough in general to realize that what they are doing is not what John teaches. (I don't try for steps, just different dances.) This would probably send John into conniptions. In your position I think I would look into doing such a project using a different group of dancers and then attempt to bring in the ones who already do the Regency events later, so there will be some social pressure to adopt the correct style/format/manner/whaddevuh. I envy you the concentration of dancers there, though. Maybe I'll get a chance to dance while I'm out there in a few weeks - anything going on over Labor Day weekend? The $10,000 question: in what rhythm did you learn the sauteuse, and do you know whose reconstruction it is? The question is, is it a duple or triple time dance? (step-step-step or quick-quick-slow for each demi-tour?) This is one I've been spending much thought on lately and arguing with other reconstructors on. And if I haven't drifted inexcusably off-topic, how exactly did you perform the jete' waltz? Susan ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 04:14:58 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 03:59:21 -0700 (PDT) From: Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing Subject: Re: Oh, I get it now To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Message-ID: <01KKXBR5OYTKHOWR10-AT- SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; format=flowed; CHARSET=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT References: <20020803235107.2375.qmail-AT- web13801.mail.yahoo.com> Linda wrote: > Lyrl Ahern wrote: > >... It's hard to see people floundering and > >left to pick things up on the fly. > Some version of floundering may be necessary to learning any > completely new activity, although it's helpful to have a better > option available. Yes. A problem is that a lot of people don't want to be seen floundering, and if they aren't good enough at something right away, won't keep on going. (Contra dances manage somewhat better at getting people good enough right away. "Good enough" isn't the same as "good"; it means good enough to have fun. This is partly because of the evolution of the modern contra; when every dance has a partner swing in it, that part of the dance will soon seem familiar to the newcomer, and it provides a place to get your bearings and try to remember what to do next. Also, modern contras have a lot of figures where you're touching somebody, who can lead to some extent: circles, promenades, box the gnat, down the hall four in line, assisted cast off, courtesy turn, etc. I've seen experienced contra dancers have real difficulty with a half figure eight. And also, the heels-down contra style is more akin to the way most people walk normally, and contra dancers never get asked to skip or skip-change or rant or step-hop. They never have to think which way they'd fall if they were shot.) Some people are more willing to flounder when surrounded by other flounderers, and classes are useful for them. (My excellent-couple-dancer girlfriend was more comfortable at the local dance that has quite a few perpetual beginners because floundering didn't stand out than she was at the idea of going to the local dance with a high percentage of good dancers, even if it'd be easier to learn when everybody else was doing it right.) >A class is good, *if* people will come. (I think > earlier discussions on this list pointed out that those who really > need the classes are unlikely to attend.) At least once they've been to regular dances. If the gateway they'd encountered first was a class, they might go to class. >The best bet i've seen is > good modelling: that is, the experienced dancers are (hopefully) > setting the example for others to follow... nothing can substitute > for that, in any case... more is "caught" than "taught". > It's also > possible, if not overdone, for a dance leader to put in one or two > small style points per evening. Not much and perhaps not very > noticeable, but if the same group attends for a while, the effect can > be cumulative. Provided that they're _different_ style points. I see the "spaghetti arms" style point show up a lot, and most others not so much. -- Alan =============================================================================== Alan Winston --- WINSTON-AT- SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Disclaimer: I speak only for myself, not SLAC or SSRL Phone: 650/926-3056 Paper mail to: SSRL -- SLAC BIN 99, 2575 Sand Hill Rd, Menlo Park CA 94025 =============================================================================== ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 04:31:47 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 04:17:10 -0700 (PDT) From: Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing Subject: Re: Oh, I get it now To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Message-ID: <01KKXCCZIYM6HOWR10-AT- SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Susan wrote: > I think Wilson mentions the use of floor managers, whose apparent > function is to assist the Master of the Ceremonies in seeing that > thing go smoothly. That isn't the term he uses, but I don't have time > right this sec to go look it up. The model I am using is one of > Wilson's public assemblies, not a ball in a private home (funny, no > one I know has a ballroom big enough for this...) I really have to sit down and read through Wilson some time. Every time I dip in I find some astonishing thing. > And you think *you* have a problem....I'm female! Gack. Mistress of > the Ceremonies is even worse than caller. :) I've thought about > bringing in an experienced ball preceptor to take the role, but this > creates the significant danger that the event will be perceived as > *his* event (he being prominent for putting on balls and such), and I > would sort of like to get credit for my project. (Mine! Mine!) This > is a typical problem for women doing historical dance, alas; I'll have > to deal with it over and over. And I don't suppose you want to do drag. (Viz: Georgette Heyer's _The Masqueraders_, a very entertaining drag comedy/romance/historical, although it's Georgian rather than Regency.) > >So you won't be doing the true lover's knot? Darn. (You get the idea > >of which were commonly used by comparing the figures in published > >dances to the figures in, eg, Wilson?) > Yes. And even Wilson almost never uses his own fancy figures - I > think I've only actually seen the knot once or twice. A version of it appears in John Hertz's "Want of Management", the 96-bar triple-minor for those who think "Mutual Promises" (a 64-bar triple minor) isn't long and complicated enough. (If I ever had any idea of calling it in MECD circles, which I don't, mercy to musicians would stay my hand.) >Non-Wilson > manuals are even more limited in repertoire. I wish Keller would > become interested in doing a figure database for early 19thc English > manuals as he did for Playford and American ones; it's a needed > project but I find it totally uninspiring. I'm doing figure > databasing for waltz country dances, but that's quite enough for > me. (And waltz c.d.'s are a very interesting problem. It's not > clear to me that they are properly done with waltz steps, or even > in triple time for that matter. And won't *that* throw the > Duke of Kent's Waltzers into a tailspin! Pardon me while I ooze > raw research theories here.) Okay, I've heard the idea that "waltz" at one time meant any circulating ballroom-hold dance, but not recently. I don't know what the original Draper's Garden tune sounded like - or what time signature it was in - but Northdown Waltz is definitely a triple-time dance, even if the original has poussettes rather than ballroom-position waltz. So, basically, I'd like to hear more > And of course the tendency of vintage dancers (self included) to munge > their 1890's waltzing into 1860's waltzing is notorious - once you get > spinning the sensation is so similar it's easy to just shift your feet > into the other, and most of us learned 1860's first, and much more > intensely than 1890's, so it becomes the default. I really don't know the difference once ballroom position comes into play. > In your position I think I would look into doing such a project using > a different group of dancers and then attempt to bring in the ones who > already do the Regency events later, so there will be some social > pressure to adopt the correct style/format/manner/whaddevuh. I envy > you the concentration of dancers there, though. Maybe I'll get a > chance to dance while I'm out there in a few weeks - anything going on > over Labor Day weekend? Not Regency-wise. There's supposed to be some chance of my leading a second Regency dance session at the WorldCon ("second" to John's, that is) and if I do it'll have live music and feature my repertoire rather than his. > The $10,000 question: in what rhythm did you learn the sauteuse, and > do you know whose reconstruction it is? The question is, is it a > duple or triple time dance? (step-step-step or quick-quick-slow for > each demi-tour?) This is one I've been spending much thought on > lately and arguing with other reconstructors on. I've only done the waltz sauteuse; Stan Isaacs taught it and said it was Richard Powers' reconstruction (and similarly for the jeteuse). I seem to remember step-step-step, but it's been several years. (We several times had Stan come to the February Regency dance party (with a Valentine's theme) and teach that waltz sequence; in more recent years it's fallen just before the Cyprians' Ball and it's seemed a good idea to use the whole evening to review the dances for that.) > And if I haven't drifted inexcusably off-topic, how exactly did you > perform the jete' waltz? It seems to me to have involved some hopping and kicking - I never got comfortable enough with it to find it very plausible. This is not the kind of off-topicness I want to quash. Admittedly, the country dance connection resembles the reason a raven is like a writing desk (because Poe wrote on both), but we're still in the period ballroom, so I'll take it. -- Alan =============================================================================== Alan Winston --- WINSTON-AT- SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Disclaimer: I speak only for myself, not SLAC or SSRL Phone: 650/926-3056 Paper mail to: SSRL -- SLAC BIN 99, 2575 Sand Hill Rd, Menlo Park CA 94025 =============================================================================== ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 04:40:37 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 07:47:05 -0400 From: Tom Siess Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Apology To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: <001201c23c75$d2d96d20$13044443-AT- sympatico.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Sorry - a posting for Mary Beth Goodman inadvertantly got sent to the whole list. I'm sure that few of you are interested in our house building plans or our dog's adventure. Anne Siess ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 07:56:24 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 10:56:25 -0400 From: Campbell Kaynor Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Re: Oh, I get it now To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT I agree with most of your ruminations. Here is how I address some of these in my attempt to make the ECD accessible to a wider audience. 1) Dances that people went to dancing school to learn how to do I feel that we often under-estimate the capability of the common people to encompass and experience some joy in dancing some of this repertoire even without the schooling required to do them more perfectly. 2) Dances that people practiced extensively to perform for others (whether or not the small-set Playford dances were used like Italian court dances in that regard, certainly Bray's theatrical afterpieces fall in this category) Again, I have found that with the skill that many of today's callers bring to the instruction of these dances, one can find that some portion of these are fun to dance even when there is no audience and when the quality is below what anyone would want to see. 3) Dances that don't fit the music clearly because a) Mr. Sharp didn't like the music that came with it and attached other music ("Hit and Miss", for example) or b) we don't do the stepping that _made_ it fit the music ("Draper's Maggot") or c) we don't play it as it was meant to be played I try to avoid all such dances. Either I don't do them at all or I do them to the original intended tune and I strive to play the music on instruments and in a manner that gives meaning to the choreography. 4) Dances that, taken cumulatively, require us to know 350 years' worth of different figures, some of which only show up in a handful of dances I tend to confine the repertoire at my dances to a particular time-frame (no more than 50-60 years) rather than to span the 350 years of evolution in ECD. The exceptions are dances that I deem to fit within the style and repertoire of the evening no matter what the date of authorship. Dances such as Levi Jackson, Margaret's Waltz, Bare Necessities, Walpole Cottage, etc... I would never mix in with my Playford repertoire, but I am likely to do these as oddities during an evening of contra. 5) Dances that blithely expect us to do closed-couple waltz ("Heidenroslein", "Margaret's Waltz", modern interpretation of "Northdown Waltz") or polka (every swing-and-change dance) whether or not we know it I don't do these except perhaps in a contra setting. 6) Dances that fall to pieces if you turn the wrong way or get the timing wrong I do many of these, but I spend some time teaching the dancers how NOT to fall apart. For example, I try to make it clear where they should be at the end of the dance and ready to start again with the next couple, I emphasize that whether they pass by the right or the left, the object is to end on the other side, and if there are moments where they spend time with their partners, I point these out as times to regroup, since most dancers can spot the familiar face of their partner from some distance away.... 7) Dances whose choreographers assume that in addition to the entire ECD lexicon we're also on top of the contra and square dance lexicon as well ("Levi Jackson", my own "MM") Many of my dancers are familiar with basic contra/square figures. If saying Grand Squares will mean something to 75% of the people in the hall, I use it (e.g., in Hunsdon House) and then they can assist me in teaching the figure to the other 25%. Often a room full of people will instantly respond to dos-a-dos but turn to you in bafflement if you say back-to-back. As the evening wears on I can familiarize them with the Playford lingo, but my first objective is to get them hooked on how fun the dances are. Authenticity in terminology etc... take a back-seat unless I am teaching a "workshop." 8) Easy, simple, vigorous dances, some of which the experienced dancers refuse to do. (If you doubt that last, think "rant".) Not all the simple dances are vigorous and there are some "vigorous" dances that need not be done vigorously. Right now I am thinking of Trip to Paris. I teach the B as: 1s cross, cast down one, cross, cast up one,... (which can be done with bad knees, conservation of energy, and elegant style) and then observe that some athletic dancers like to take advantage of my unwillingness to police the hall, by skipping whither they will during this portion of the dance. (I do insist they understand when the music says to turn single and be in position to do this all together). I find that those who enjoy a graceful dance and shun the active ones can participate without fear. This example doesn't treat the issue of rants - I seldom do these since they are more typical of a period I rarely include in my evenings. Cammy ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 18:07:10 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Tue, 06 Aug 2002 11:07:38 +1000 From: Earthly Delights Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: New Dance Discussion Board To: "ECD-AT- SSRL04.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU" Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT I found an interesting dance discussion board that only started a few days ago - http://www.voy.com/101083/. English Country Dance, Contra, Australian Bush Dance, Vintage and more.. Seems a great idea if you don't want to receive any more emails! Cheers, Aylwen ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 18:26:08 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 18:26:02 -0700 (PDT) From: Andy Peterson Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Re: Oh, I get it now To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: <20020806012602.45758.qmail-AT- web20007.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT --- Campbell Kaynor wrote: > 5) Dances that blithely expect us to do closed-couple waltz > ("Heidenroslein", "Margaret's Waltz", modern interpretation of > "Northdown Waltz") or polka > > (every swing-and-change dance) whether or not we know it > > I don't do these except perhaps in a contra setting. Quite frankly, in my experience English dancers are more likely to be able to do these dances than contra dancers. Many Contra dancers do not know how to do a turning waltz. > 7) Dances whose choreographers assume that in addition to the > entire ECD lexicon we're also on top of the contra and square dance > lexicon as well > ("Levi Jackson", my own "MM") > > Many of my dancers are familiar with basic contra/square figures. > If saying Grand Squares will mean something to 75% of the people in > the hall, I use it (e.g., in Hunsdon House) and then they can assist > me in teaching the figure to the other 25%. Often a room full of > people will instantly respond to dos-a-dos but turn to you in > bafflement if you say back-to-back. Grand Square seems to baffle most people around here, even if the caller takes considerable time to teach it. I happen to enjoy squares when called well, but often in contra settings the teaching isn't very good and the calling is often worse. Guess I've been spoiled by Ralph Sweet, who does great singing squares, and Bob Dalsemer, not to mention Otto Wood, for the old timers among us. There's nothing worse than someone who can't sing trying to do singing squares or calling it like they would a contra. It just doesn't feel like the same dance. > 8) Easy, simple, vigorous dances, some of which the experienced > dancers refuse to do. (If you doubt that last, think "rant".) I find it interesting that many people find the rant more difficult as they get older, but the people who do Finnish polka at Scandinavian dances (which I find to be a _very_ similar step) tend to be the old timers. Andy __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com ================================================================================ Archive-Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 18:55:03 PST Sender: owner-ecd-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 18:54:58 -0700 (PDT) From: Andy Peterson Reply-To: ECD-AT- playford.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Re: Oh, I get it now To: ECD-AT- PLAYFORD.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Message-ID: <20020806015458.95836.qmail-AT- web20005.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT --- Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing wrot