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dance-msg - 3/20/15

SCA and period dancing. References. Dance tapes. Dance videos.

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NOTICE -

This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.

This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org

I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter.

The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors.

Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s).

Thank you,

Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous

Stefan at florilegium.org

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From: Gretchen Miller

To: All

Date: 08-Nov-89 04:51pm

Subject: Re: Dance

From: grm+ at andrew.cmu.edu (Gretchen Miller)

Date: 7 Nov 89 17:47:33 GMT

Organization: Computing Systems, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Newsgroups: alt.sca

Joshua ibm-Eleazar ha-Shalib writes:

> Earl of Salisbury, I believe, was written in the 1920's.

Nope! Earl of Salisbury is definitely "period", though the dance that

is done was not specifically choreographed to the music. The following

is from Mabel Dolmetsch's "Dances of England and France 1450 to 1600":

"We will now consider the two English pavans, of which the steps are

noted in the Rawlinson manuscript before alluded to. [Anon., C. 1570.

Rawlinson Manuscript, says the bibliography].

The first of these is a short pavan and therefore combines well with the

music of "The Earl of Salisbury's Pavan", by William Byrd....The

sequence of steps noted in the Raslinson manuscript is as follows : Two

singles and a double forward ; two sideways singles and a reprise (or

retreat) backward."

The vast majority of Pavans done in the SCA, however, are modern

creations. Besides EofS the only two I can think of are Master Newman's

Pavan (which is the other pavan taken from the Rawlinson manuscript) and

The Spanish Pavan (from Arbeau).

Margaret MacDubhSidhe

(grm+ at andrew.cmu.edu or grm# at andrew.cmu.edu)

From: Tsuki Musume

To: Yves Fortagne

Date: 15-Nov-89 12:02pm

Subject: montarde

Montarde is a bransle from Arbeau, I think, involving a line of four or six

people, alternating gender usually. The steps are eight doubles to the left,

with the person on the left end of the line weaving his/her 8 doubles back

through the line while the line is moving 'towards' him/her. The b part is

each person in line, in turn, does four kicks to turn 360 degrees in place,

with whatever flourishes and whatnot one desires.

Hope this helps.

* Origin: >> The Ophiuchi Hotline << Forward! Into the past! (1:109/508)

From: Mary Knettel

To: All

Date: 17-Nov-89 08:35am

Subject: More on dancing

From: MKNETTEL%KENTVM.BITNET at MITVMA.MIT.EDU (Mary Knettel)

Date: 16 Nov 89 21:54:00 GMT

Organization: Society for Creative Anachronism

Message-ID: <8911161735.aa07788 at mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Someone at the War reported on research into "Road to the Isles" and found

a Scottish dance which choreography closely fits what we call Road to the

Isles

-- called "The Far Northlands" dated 1949. Maybe someone who actually attended

the Dancemasters meeting (Wed or Thurs evening at the War) can more

specifically document this. Anyway, this was announced for the rest of the

week at the dances at the Barn; and we started referring to the dance as

"The Far Northlands".

Also -- "Strip the Willow" is at least a Scottish country dance, but is done

in sets of 4 couples at the ceidlah's -- which is much more enjoyable, actually

especially when the couples actually complete the turns in 4 beats!

Genevieve du Vent Argent, Marche of Gwyntarian, Barony Middle Marches,

MidRealm

Mary Knettel, Kent, Ohio mknettel at kent.vm

From: grm+ at andrew.cmu.edu (Gretchen Miller)

Date: 17 Nov 89 00:48:43 GMT

Organization: Computing Systems, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

<<< Someone at the War reported on research into "Road to the Isles" and found

a Scottish dance which choreography closely fits what we call Road to the

Isles

-- called "The Far Northlands" dated 1949. >>>

I believe that the above information was all that was given at the

Dancemasters meeting. "Someone" was Lord Richard Tyler of Swiftwater;

he gives the reference in a pamphlet called "The Rhydderich Hael

Measures" as : The Far Northland (Partners All, Places All, 1949)

Margaret MacDubhSidhe

From: haste+ at andrew.cmu.edu (Dani Zweig)

Date: 16 Nov 89 23:44:33 GMT

Organization: Graduate School of Industrial Administration, Carnegie Mellon,

Pittsburgh, PA

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Marguerite de la Souche:

>Also, is there a songbook available of common SCA dances?

There are two collections that come to mind. One is Lord Longwind's

collection. It's printed by Raymond's Quiet Press. If you don't want

to wait till Pennsic, find someone who kept their merchant's catalog

from last Pennsic and get his address. Another is the set of

arrangements put together by Arianna of Wynthrope some years back. It's

never been formally published, but there are a lot of copies floating

around which can be copied. Both of these sources tend to concentrate

on four-part arrangements, with the melody line usually being the

familiar one. In addition, there are *lots* of books containing

arrangements of Playford's dances. (If you can't find anything else,

try English Country Dance collections.) I can't think of any good

sources of SCA dances in tabulature.

>So far I've figured out Hole in the Wall (there's that dance again... ;-)

A nonmodal tune for a modal instrument. Are you playing most of the

dance with chords or drones and then just plucking the middle string to

get the accidental?

-----

Dani of the Seven Wells

haste+ at andrew.cmu.edu

From: caa at midgard.Midgard.MN.ORG (Charles A Anderson)

Date: 3 Apr 90 18:06:10 GMT

Organization: The Midgard Realm, St Paul MN

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

I'm sorry I didn't post this earlier but I wanted to verify it first.

Sometime ago, someone requested information on dance manuals and tapes.

Mistress Rosanore has both manuals that she has written, and tapes for

the dances. (by the Jararvellir music guild, where the northshield dance

seminar is being held this weekend.)

Her address is:

Susan Henry

258 S Griggs

St Paul, MN 55105

(612) 699-0714

Write or give her a call during reasonable hours. (before 10pm central)

(she told me I could go ahead and post this)

-Dmitri

From: justin at INMET.INMET.COM (Justin du Coeur MKA Mark Waks)

Date: 18 Apr 90 15:32:21 GMT

Organization: Society for Creative Anachronism

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Cuthbert an Alreton writes (among other things):

>Last night during a meeting devoted to rehearsing the demo

>our "dance mistress," who has lots and lots and lots of experience in

>period dance performance but less SCA dance experience, made some

>stylistic comments. The comments were along the lines, "Remember

>these are peasant dances so dance like peasants."

Milord, this isn't a flame, of you *or* your dance mistress, but I want

to put some emphasis here...

English Country dances are *not* peasant dances, dammit!

This is one of the most common mis-conceptions in the Society about

dance, and leads to vast disagreements about proper dance style. The

confusion appears to arise from the name. As far as I've figured, they

were called "Country Dances" because they were mostly danced outside the

Royal Court, among the landed gentry, *not* because they were being

danced by country bumpkins.

If you (using "you" in the sense of all the readers, not Cuthbert (maybe I

should say "y'all"?)) are at all serious about dancing correctly, think

about this. In period, you wouldn't be dancing this in t-tunic and

trousers; rather, both men and ladies are under *tons* of clothing,

and both are probably corsetted to within an inch of their lives. These

dances are the immediate precursors to the Baroque -- think about

dancing them in clothes like those in "Dangerous Liaisons", and you're

getting closer to the right model...

The implications of this misconception are wide. The SCA tends to

produce a lot of very fast English Country dance music, because some

recordings are too slow to feel right. Now consider doing the dances

with a lady in a three-foot-wide hoop, and think about how fast you

want that music playing...

I don't really expect to get people dancing English Country in a

period fashion; plenty of folks have tried and failed before me.

But I *would* like to kill this notion that it's "correct" and

"period" to dance English Country like modern contra -- it simply

isn't the case...

-- Justin du Coeur

Editor, The Letter of Dance

and wandering dancemaster

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Sample listing and review:

_Danses_Populaires_Francaises_et_Anglaises_du_XVIc_Siecle_

Broadside Band with Jeremy Barlow - Harmonia Mundi/HMC 901152

Danses Populaires is nice collection of dance music, and especially

useful as it contains music for several dances from both Arbeau and

Playford. The music is arranged nicely, with variations between the

different repeats of the same dance; this makes each dance sound

pretty and interesting without adding so much as to cause confusion.

Lots of albums will take medieval dance music and twiddle it to be

appealing to modern tastes, which often makes it useless for dance;

this album succeeds in presenting interesting but still very

danceable music. Most of the music is on the sedate, slower side,

including the English country.

In general, we highly recommend this; but there are a few specific

pieces that you might want to use caution with for SCA dance: the

first Tourdion and the second and third Galliard are slow and quiet,

and don't really have the clear syncopated beat that helps keep

dancers in time. We're used to doing the Scottish branle alternating

between the "first" and "second" branles as described in Arbeau, pp.

148-151; this recording has two repeats of the "first" and two of the

"second", which is confusing if your dancers are used to it the other

way around. Finally, the version of Washerwomen's bransle is really

nifty, and the "scolding" parts sound wonderful... but Barlow got a

little carried away with them: Arbeau has four "scolding" singles (p.

156), but this version has 8 the first time through, and 16 during

the later repeats! The changing number of singles here may be

confusing to dancers. These few problems, though, are quite

outweighed by the rest of the music, which is very usable for SCA

dance.

Music included:

A. from Arbeau (Branles, etc.)

Double / Simple / Gay / Burgogne // Cassandra / Pinagay / Charlotte

// Jouissance vous Donneray / Tourdion / Tourdion // Pavane "Belle

qui tiens ma vie" / Galliarde "La Traditore my fa moire / G.

"Antionette" / G. "J'aymerois mieulx dormir seulette" / La Volta //

Poictou / Ecosse / Bretagne // Malte / Lavandieres / Chevaulx //

Jouissance / 3 French Corantos / Basse "La Roque" / Recercada Segunda

// Haye / Official // Moresques / Canaries / Bouffons

B. from Playford 1651

Grimstock // Upon a Summer's Day // The Spanish Gipsy // Rufty Tufty

// Gray's Inn Mask // Bobbing Joe // Heart's Ease

// = separate tracks.

/ = several dances are included in a single CD track. There's a

brief pause between them... if you wanted, for example, to set up a

tape with several versions of branle Charlotte, you _could_ separate

it off when dubbing a copy, but it does take effort.

- Janelyn et Trahaearn

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

> Safer to ask; you may be pleasantly surprised.

> The dance we do is a recognizable variation/arrangement of Arbeau's Maltese

> Bransle. The important differences are that we've simplified the steps and

> compensated by using a suicide tune.

I took the time to look up the Maltese Branle in Arbeau's _Orchesography_

before I saw Lord Dani's posting, and also found that what I had learned

as the Maltese was a modification on Arbeau's dance. I think, however,

that Lord Dani might be underemphasizing the magnitude of the modifica-

tions, just as Lady Elaine was incorrect to say that the dance is not "one

bit period."

The dance, as I learned it in the SCA, with dancers in a ring, goes:

Double left, double right, double left, double right [drop hands]

3 steps into the centre [raise arms to snap fingers]

Clap three times

[turn 180 degrees after clapping, to step away from the centre, snap

fingers as before]

3 steps away from the centre

Kick left, right, left

[turn 180 degrees as you kick, seize hands to repeat the dance].

I know of several minor variations on this.

Arbeau's dance is a "mimed" dance which he describes as having been de-

vised for a Court masquerade by the Knights of Malta in imitation of the

Turks; it was supposedly first danced in France forty years before, i.e.

ca. 1549. It is supposed to be in slow duple time. I am not quite up

enough on dance notation to give a perfect transcription of Arbeau's steps

but simply put:

Double left, single right

6 steps forward toward the centre, holding foot in air on last step

[dancers gesticulate and make appropriate faces, releasing hands after

the 6th step]

Turn to the left in four steps

Kick left, right, left; bring feet together

[take hands, and repeat, varying the gesticulations and faces]

There are some problems in interpretting this (eg. Arbeau instructs the

dancers to make six steps towards the centre, but never tells them to

come back, and even if you are supposed to travel away from the centre

while turning to the left, I still have this image of an ever tightening

circle ending up in a hopeless tangle, which I suppose *may* have been the

way the Knights of Malta envisioned the Turks). I suspect that some of

the first SCA dance teachers, coming across this nifty mimed branle in

Arbeau, tried to sort out the difficulties by making three of the six

steps toward, and three out of the centre, amalgamating the turn to the

left and the three quick kicks to match the livelier music they were using.

This music also required more steps were required before the steps in and

out of the circle, so they substituted the common "DL, DR, DL, DR" pattern

for Arbeau's "DL, SR".

I have never found this dance apparently out of period, and I consider

it a good example of creating new dances from within the framework of

the existing ones. (Although until very recently I had thought that the

version I knew was from Arbeau, and I think my teachers had fallen down

in the assumptions department, nor had I ever bothered to check.) Any

dancemistress who refuses to dance this dance because it is "not real",

IMHO has rocks in her head. It is well within the tradition it purports

to represent, and it has a reality within the Society.

Sarra Graeham, Canton of Greyfells | Heather Fraser

Principality of Ealdormere, Midrealm | Kingston, Ontario, CANADA

c/o dicksnr at qucdn.queensu.ca

From: flieg at HYDROGEN.CCHEM.BERKELEY.EDU (Frederick Hollander)

Date: 16 May 90 00:03:35 GMT

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

====================================

* * * Frederick of Holland

*** *** *** Old Used Duke

_|___|___|_

|===========| Subject: Jouyoussance

Date: 15 May xxv (1990)

The recent posting from Dani of the Seven Wells on the choreography of

Jouyoussance vous Donneray was interesting to say the least. As the

person who generally teaches the dance out here in the Mists, I have to

say that it is obvious that we have the same music, as the number of

measures fit. However, it is equally obvious that at some point in the

learn-teach-learn cycle the two dances diverged. (And it *is* much

easier to learn from a teacher, though Dani's instructions are

excellent.)

I am not going to repeat Dani's instructions here, go look them up.

The dance as I teach it has the following differences.

1) We use standard pavane sets for all forward movement, with no split

doubles or anything like that. Nobody told us about going straight

forward or the like. I'm not sure whether we are doing two or four

measures to a step since I have no idea what the measures look like.

(The use of the simple pavane sets does mean that we can make the second

set of the middle pair go backwards easily to allow the dance to be

danced in a small room, but I have the suspicion that Dani's

choreography is closer to "right", since it has that obnoxious ;) lack

of pattern characteristic of basse dances. The side to side motion of

the standard pavane set also reduces the space requirements, but not by

much.)

2) In the reprise section we reprise right, then left, then catch *left*

hands together on the fourth beat and circle to the *right*,

*completely* around in four steps, ending up "proper" at all times. We

then do a bransle left, bransle right instead of out/in.

3) The center part was looking the same as ours until I got to the bit

where the ladies changed places and the lords did likewise. We instead

have the couples face so that the lord is returning to place and the

ladies continue on in the same direction. To use up the music we have

the bransle left/right just as at the end of the other reprise sections.

What I find most interesting is that we here have two dances with

major differences between them which are still recognizably the same

dance! Makes me wonder just how many variants were lying around at the

time Arbeau wrote a few of them down.

In service to Crown and Kingdom

Frederick of Holland, Duke, MSCA,OP

From: Justin du Coeur MKA Mark Waks

To: All

Date: 17-May-90 12:12pm

Subject: Jargon, Awards, Dance Invention, etc.

Re: Inventing Dances

I have mixed feelings on this score. On the one hand, there is no question

in my mind that inventing dances is a Good Thing -- a good dancemaster in period

would have been expected to create new dances on a regular basis. On the

other hand, most of the dances invented in the Society would have been

regarded as kinda weird in period, and some of them are downright

abominations.

If you want to invent dances, my advice, in a nutshell, is: know what you

are inventing. This has several corollaries:

-- Don't mix 'n' match. Most of the worst inventions in the Society come from

someone trying to take the best of English Country, Bransles, and Allemandes,

and put them all in one dance. Recognize that these were each distinct dance

forms, from different cultures, for different audiences. Choose *one*

particular form.

-- Study the form. Each form has a whole bunch of unwritten rules. Look at

the dances that you already know from the form, and try to understand those

rules -- some of them are pretty subtle. For example, one that most inventors

in the Society miss: period dances don't do much with the arms. The *vast*

majority of the pre-1600 dances concentrate on the feet, and pay little or

no attention to what you're doing with your hands. This changes somewhat for

English Country, but footwork is still the focus. (This is why dances that

mandate palming give me little heebie-jeebies; it just wasn't done that

much...)

-- Think about garb requirements. Very few people in the SCA dance the

Renaissance dance in the appropriate garb, and it makes a *big* difference.

There's a reason why the dances were written the way they were, after all.

Galliards are appropriate for gentlemen in tights, and things that involve

lots of bending or arm motion are pretty difficult in tight late-period

corsets...

-- Don't get over-ambitious. I'd suggest starting with a bransle or three.

They're relatively flexible, and pretty easy to write. Pavans and allemandes

are similar. English Country is both better and worse -- they're considerably

more flexible, but the unwritten rules are far more complex, and evolved

quickly between 1650 and 1700. (Besides, do you really want to be inventing

something that wouldn't have been in period in the first place?)

-- Don't perpetuate SCA dance myths. English Country dances were not written

for the peasantry, they were intended for a courtly audience, so bear in mind

the garb that would have been worn. Figured Pavans are not, insofar as I know,

period -- the "line of three couples" concept mostly came in with English

Country. (The only lines of three couples I know of in period are for Italian

Balli, and those are *very* different (and much harder to write) than pavans.)

-- Critique yourself hard, and don't fall in love with your work. Talk to

other dance-types around, and see what they have to say about the dance, before

it gets graven in stone. You don't have to take their advice, but you should

seek it out.

The final test is what a knowledgable dancemaster says when they see the

dance. If I see an invention, and my first reaction is, "Gee, I must have

overlooked that one -- I'll have to go find the source", then I conclude

that that is a successful invention. If it looks like a period dance, walks

like a period dance, and quacks like a period dance, it's a period dance...

(I can feel an editiorial for the Letter of Dance coming on...)

-- Justin du Coeur

The perenially long-winded

From: haste+ at andrew.cmu.edu (Dani Zweig)

Date: 20 Jun 90 04:25:14 GMT

Organization: Graduate School of Industrial Administration, Carnegie Mellon,

Pittsburgh, PA

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

A couple of years ago I got an English-Country dancer to send me his

instructions for this dance. This is the way it's danced today, but

it seems a very reasonable reconstruction to me:

====================

From: Jonathan Young <young-jonathan at YALE.ARPA>

* Stingo (to Juice of Barley) 1651 Playford

3 cpl sets

Fall back from ptn a double;

Fwd a double to ptn;

Up (the set) a double and back;

3 Men turn right hands round;

They set to ptn & turn single

3 Women turn left hands round;

They set to ptn & turn single

Siding:

Fwd to ptn a double & back (touch right shoulders)

Fwd to ptn a double & back (touch left shoulders)

All turn L, up a double;

turn single (in); back to place

Set & turn single

All turn R, up a double;

turn single (in); back to place

Set & turn single

Arming:

Arm ptn right once round

Arm ptn left once round

Set & turn single

1s cross to between 2&3 of opp sex;

set to 2s above;

set to 3s below;

go back to ptn's place, exiting between 2&3;

turn up single; 2h turn ptn once round;

cast down to third place while 2s & 3s lead up

====================

Some notes:

The first figure has two lines of dancers falling away from their partners.

This makes sense of "meet again".

If I interpret this correctly, the second figure includes a men's r.h. star

and a women's l.h. star. This makes more sense than having the men

dance with the women, the way it's worded.

This was written up (by the person who sent it to me) from memory, not

from a reference.

I'm not sure the timing on the arming works. (One reason I never

taught this dance.)

-----

Dani of the Seven Wells

From: dani at netcom.COM (Dani Zweig)

Date: 20 Aug 91 22:52:31 GMT

Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

I don't mean to imply, of course, that there was nothing else doing

at Pennsic. There were all sorts of other things (I suppose) including

between three and four hundred merchants who'd sworn a solemn oath

to beggar me. But I'll just comment on these.

Dancing was an improvement on many previous years, but it still has a

long way to go. The perennial problem of beginners' dancing driving

out advanced dancing is still unsolved. This is exacerbated by the

otherwise laudable fact that most of the music is live: The overlap of

the musicians' repertoire and the dancemistress's repertoire turned out

to be the ten or twenty Standard Dances which half the dancers knew and

the other half could be taught in ten minutes. I don't know any good

answers to this frustrating situation.

-----

Dani of the Seven Wells

dani at netcom.com

And there is more to it than this, for dancing is practised to

reveal whether lovers are in good health and sound of limb, and

after which they are permitted to kiss their mistresses in order that

they may touch and savour one another, thus to ascertain if they

are shapely or emit an unpleasant odour as of bad meat. Therefore,

from this standpoint, quite apart from the many other advantages to

be derived from dancing, it becomes an essential in a well-ordered

society. -- Thoinot Arbeau (1588)

From: bnostrand at lynx.northeastern.EDU

Date: 19 Sep 91 16:21:24 GMT

Organization: The Internet

Dance Master Justin De Ceour has made a very standard comment about

period vs non-period dancing. However, it may be easily misunderstood.

What is actually being talked about is not dancing in general but rather

documented dancing. In order for dancing to be documented, it was

necessary for the professional dance masters to first come into existence.

These dance maters were paid professionals (frequently aquiring a lot

of influence as masters of courtesy and protocol) and as such

choreographed dances for professional entertainers and occasionally

courtiers who wished to demonstrate their proficiency at dancing.

(re. comments by Countess Mara Tudora) (sp)

Group dancing existed before all of this, but it is not clear whether

it was social dancing in the 18th and 19th century sense. For example,

a Papal bull banned Caroling (about a thousand years ago ... I am sorry

that I can not provide a date at this time) which had previously been

practiced in church yards. There is also I believe a fair amount of

iconographic evidence suggesting the existence of group non-performance

dancing. (The existence of a non-dancing audience does not gaurantee

that the dance in question is a performance dance. The largely

undocumented festival dancing of Japan for example features both dances

by 1 to 8 or so dancers and other dances in which mobs of people

participate and freely join and leave the dance as it progresses.)

We see similar patterns in documented African and American tribal

dances. One distinguishing feature of a lot of this pre-modern

dancing is the ritualistic overtones of a lot of it and also that

a lot of it separates the two genders. In reports of early Italian

dance there are (again I defer to Mara) indications that some

of the oestensibly mixed-sex dances were actually performed by people

of the same sex. Regardless, the emergence of social couples

dancing may in fact be relatively recent. And probably grew out of

a desire on the part of court nobles to emulate the refined dances

of the professional dancers. (Although this of course is purest

speculation.)

The ritualistic nature of a lot of Japanese dancing has been extensively

commented upon. A lot of Japanese dancing corresponds to the Obon

season and in a sense is performance dancing. The unseen audience is

the assembled unseen spirits of the departed ancestors of the dancers.

Other dances are typically fertility dances and are frequently performed by

smaller groups. And there are also other dances as well. All of this

is "folk" dancing in that they are performed by non-professional

peasantry. Their purpose to appease ancestors, cause the crops to grow,

dispell deamons, etc. And, of course they all make great social events.

Noh dancing on the other hand is strictly professional, typically

narative and strongly associated with institutionalized religion.

(Shinto shires) One more thread in paleo-dancing, is exhibitionist

dancing. I would like to suggested that skilled exhibitionist dancers

are possibly the predecessors of the professional dance masters.

For example, the now professionalized tribal dances of Berundi (sp)

have clearly exhibitionist elements. However, these same elements

are visible in films collected by anthropologists. (Flame off for now.)

Solveig Throndardottir

From: bnostrand at lynx.northeastern.EDU

Date: 19 Sep 91 16:28:45 GMT

Organization: The Internet

One more source of proto-dancing in Europe of course is the processionals

of the Catholic church. These still take place in churches and

monestaries and are designed to move large groups of people into and out

of a bassilica in such a way as to impress (and intimidate) the

peasants. These of course may be taken from the triumphs of Rome which

searved a similar purpose. Consequently, it is generally understood

that some of the early dances (e.g., Pavans) were descended from and

may have in fact been processionals. Others such as some of the

Bransles (sp) may in fact be descendents of fertility dances.

More Smoke from

Solveig Throndardottir

From: bnostrand at lynx.northeastern.EDU

Date: 20 Sep 91 01:11:52 GMT

Organization: The Internet

Recently, (I can not say when I receive the digest and it appears to be

jumbled at the moment) a gentle remarked on the relative unpopularity of

easy period dances when compared to various non-period dances. It seems

to me that what the easy period dances often lack is:

1) Flashyness

2) Large Body Movements

3) Fast Rythm

That is they are rather subdued. Even horses which can be executed in

a rather flashy manner (that is if you really enjoy pawing and stomping)

is frequently taught and performed in a rather lack luster manner and is

rather slow. This is not true of Maltese Bransle and hence its relative

popularity. This I also think explains the popularity of some of the

English country dances. (Especially when performed in the style of the

silly school of dancing.) While Hole in the Wall may be relatively

subdued it is popular (in my opinion) largely becausc of the chaos of

kidnapping. Also all of the bowing and turning out lends an oportunity

to express panasche! One attempt at a period dance which shows promise

is Salterello which is relatively simple but is more importantly

energetic and allows a lot of opportunity for flash. The problem with

this theory is what about Galliards. Well there are quite a few

galliard enthusiasts but, a flashy galliard is relatively complicated.

One interesting note is the exagerated movements of many of the dancers

at Pensic when performing Pavans and other early Italian processional

dances. Many people stomped their feet off to the side and the line

had a distinct duck walk quality to it. (Perhaps I am being too harsh

but this style of dancing is rather new to me and it seems suspiciously

similar to the style of Karobushka and Road to the Isles.) A possible

solution would be for our dance masters to try to find period dances

which satisfy the underlying psychological needs of the dancers. Now

whether such dances actually exist is another problem.

Solveig Throndardottir

From: justin at inmet.camb.inmet.COM (Justin du Coeur MKA Mark Waks)

Date: 20 Sep 91 18:05:40 GMT

Organization: The Internet

Re: Social Dance in Period

Solveig makes a bunch of points, which boil down to "social and ritual dance

of assorted sorts were done in period". It's a good point, and one to

remember.

When we talk about "period dance", we generally mean pretty much exclusively

Renaissance Dance, starting in the early 1400's. That does *not* mean that

people didn't dance before then, nor does it mean that the dances that we

are reconstructing are the only ones that were found in period. It means

that these are the only dances that we are *capable* of reconstructing.

We know that there was social dance in the early Renaissance and before.

In the most recent issue of The Letter of Dance (number ten), Leah di Estera

provides some excerpts from a 14th-century poem, which describes what amounts

to an extended Christmas party. The poem mentions a *lot* of what are

apparently social dances, giving very slight descriptions and/or names

for each. Unfortunately, the scant descriptions aren't enough to even

begin reconstructing from.

Which is essentially the problem -- until the rise of the professional

dancemaster, no one bothered to write these things down. We have some

paintings here and there, but it's *quite* hard to deduce much about a

dance from a painting; art, especially much of period art, doesn't convey

movement all that well. And even in the Renaissance, there were probably

a lot of social dances being done that never got described in any detail...

So, we're left with a good number of dances from late period, and a little

guesswork about the earlier dances. One thing that I'm hoping to see, and

Geoffrey's Saltarello was a movement in this direction, is some discussion

of the fragmentary evidence that we have from earlier in period. We may not

get reconstructions that are quite as reliable as the later-period ones,

but we may, with time, manage to come up with more educated guesses worth

examining and arguing about...

-- Justin du Coeur

From: adn at mayo.EDU (Ann Nielsen)

Date: 20 Sep 91 20:35:05 GMT

Organization: The Internet

Greetings unto the good gentles of the Rialto!

Robyyan (who teasingly speaks of my height and how I must spend my days in

terror...truly, I am not so tall (actually, I'm the shortest in my family),

although I do have terrible nightmares of falling...really, I do!!) wonders

why the kami-kaze version of Strip the Willow is more fun than the original

version. Well, to me it is more fun because it is sillier. We laugh more.

Doing the kami-kaze version also flaunts the 'rules' of doing StW 'straight',

which of course makes it more fun (for the 5 year old in all of us)! When

you aren't the person going down the middle of StW, or the one swinging the

middle person, what is there for you to do? Nothing. <yawn> And when StW is

done around here, the lines are incredibly long, which makes the dance

incredibly boring. Annoying the dance purists is fun only when they've been

obnoxious or when they've left their sense of humor at home. (We combined

Road to the Isles and Karaboushka one time to tease a dance laurel, and we

periodically do it to watch her face. Her reactions are most marvelous!!)

Umm, let's see...the first time I did the k-kStW I was involuntarily brought

into it --- I was sitting along the sidelines, watching the dance, when the

instigator came dashing over, pulled me up and swung me into the line, twirling

me about and tossing me on to the next person. Silliness is about the only

thing that gets me to dance StW.

He also asks, if a dance is entertaining already, why spice it up? Silly boy --

you are talking to someone who LOVES late period Tudor/Elizabethan garb. That's

like saying, "Gee, that dress is pretty on its own --- why add jewels??"

'Cause they're there!! They spice up the dress, sparkle, and are enjoyable for

their beauty (gee, can you tell I like jewelry?). Same with the dances. Once

the dance is known, it's fun to 'play' with it, spice it up, change it a wee

bit here and there, and have fun with it.

Actually, I don't always like dances that are energy-expendent (sometimes it

gets hard to breathe in a corset!), but MY personal criteria for a dance that

I enjoy is this:

1) entertaining to do (such as Miller in the Middle, Hole in the

Wall, Road to the Isles, etc. These may or may not be period

dances, but they are fairly easily mastered and fun. Note that

not all are fast and furious)

2) good music. Actually, I'm surprised that no one has brought this

up. Why are there top 40 songs on the radio? Because they

are infectuous. ("Uhh, yeah, Dick, I like the second one

better 'cause it's got a better, uhh, beat. Yeah, the beat's

good and I can dance to it. I give it a 70.") The same with

period dancing. If the music sets your toes a-tapping (or if

it touches something inside of you that makes you want to

go out and sway elegantly and flirt circumspectly and show

attitude), then chances are you will learn the dance and be

out there.

3) esthetics. This is a difficult one for me to describe. It's along

the lines of why I play my harp. I'll never be a concert

harpist, and I don't play it with that expectation. I play it

because it's another way to voice what's inside of me, to

express emotions and thoughts that perhaps can't be expressed

in words. And sometimes that's why I dance. I dance to express

a part of me that can't be said. It allows me to flirt outrag-

eously with someone when I wouldn't if we were speaking face

to face. It allows me to move elegantly, letting me feel

refined and perhaps aristocratic, and beautiful. It lets me

laugh over being silly, and lets me move in three dimesions,

when often words are only two-dimensional. That is why I love

the truly elegant choreographed period dances. The 'pattern'

of those dances are so satisfying.

Those are the three basic things I look for in a dance (now you've got me

analyzing why I do them, Robyyan!). I'm sure there are other reasons, but

they probably fall under one of the headings above.

I have an idea to propose. Might it be possible that the longer you are in

the SCA, the more willing you might be to learn new and possibly more compli-

cated dances? This seems to be the case for me. Last spring our Shire hosted

the regional dance seminar, and since I was autocrat I didn't take any classes,

but I did watch some and said, "Hmm, I want to learn that one, and that one,

and that one..." There was one particularly elegant twirly-pointy toed one

that I have got on my list-of-dances-to-learn. (One of the girls in the Shire

took the class and promises to point it out at the next dance semiar.) I find

the longer I'm in the SCA, the more I want to learn, the more I'm willing to

work at learning, and the more fun it becomes (and here I thought I was bad

when I started!!)

So, m'lord Robyyan, do you still think there's hope for me yet? ;-v

Therica

From: mjl at rutabaga.Rational.COM (Matthew Larsen)

Date: 21 Sep 91 18:55:25 GMT

sbloch at euler.ucsd.edu (Steve Bloch) writes:

>MKNETTEL at kentvm.kent.EDU ("Mary Knettel ", Genevieve du Vent Argent) writes:

>>people are requesting

>>"Saltarello" and "Scotch Cap" as often as Trenchmore; and not many have

>>requested "Hole in the Wall" lately.

>"Saltarello" isn't, to my knowledge, a specific dance but rather a

>type of dance; the word comes mostly from a 14th-century Italian music

>manuscript (BL addl. ms. 29987, for the librarians in the crowd) that

>contains no dance steps. Do we actually have period sources for how

>to dance a Saltarello? (Geoffrey did a "plausible invention" of a

>Saltarello in LoD #7, suggesting that there is no primary source.)

>--

>Stephen Bloch

>mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib

>>sca>Caid>Calafia>St.Artemas

>sbloch at math.ucsd.edu

There is no period choreography with the name "saltarello", although

there are many pieces of music with that title (just as there are many

pieces of music entitled "bransle" or "basse dance", with no specific

choreography extant). The fifteenth century Italian sources do give us

a step called the saltarello and some also give another step called a

saltarello tedesco (the word saltarello, by the way, is derived from the

italian word "salto" or "to jump", so one would expect the step to

involve some jumping or leaping of some sort). My guess is that when

one of these non-specific saltarello pieces was played, people would

simply dance the saltarello step to it, probably with variations invented

on the spot, just as bransle and galliards would be danced in the 16th

century. For those who are interested, Dr. Ingrid Brainard (a mundane

dance scholar who specializes in the 15th century dances) has a

reconstruction of the saltarello step which is done like this: step left,

hop (with the right foot raised in front, knee bent and the foot about

6-8 inches off the floor), step right, step left.

Geoffrey Mathias (not the Geoffrey who did the saltarello reconstruction

for the Letter of Dance)

mjl at rational.rational.com

---------------------------------10/16/91-------------------

From: DRS at UNCVX1.BITNET ("Dennis R. Sherman")

Date: 26 Sep 91 11:54:00 GMT

Organization: The Internet

(Justin)

> I'm curious. All of you who have taught galliards, do you teach them as

> "right foot" and "left foot", or as "front foot" and "back foot"? I've

> [...]

> way. Has anyone else come up with this particular twist, and if so,

> have you also found it to help?

I use right foot/left foot, but don't teach galliard as staying in one

place. Generally, I line up students at one end of the room and teach

the basic 5 step travelling forward, calling left, right, left, right,

pause, and switch; right, left, right, left, pause, and switch. Once

people have understood it going forward, it's pretty easy to shift to

staying in one place. Another trick I use to help people get the rhythm

is tell them to think of "My Country 'tis of Thee" - it's a galliard

rhythm, at about the right speed.

Robyyan Torr d'Elandris Dennis R. Sherman

Kapellenberg, Windmaster's Hill Chapel Hill, NC

Atlantia drs at uncvx1.bitnet

From: KGANDEK at mitvmc.mit.EDU (Kathryn Gandek)

Date: 26 Sep 91 14:31:30 GMT

Organization: The Internet

I confess to being of the technique is fun school. However, how I learned

renaissnce dance may have something to do with it. My first exposure (after

a dozen or so years of ballet) was a college course I took for credit (i.e. we

actually had to study as well as dance). A few years later I found the SCA and

attended some dance practices and danced at events. Eventually, I started t

spending more time visiting at events than dancing, although I didn't stop

to think much about why. Then I joined a renaissance dance troupe run by Dr.

Ingrid Brainard, a scholar and teacher of the subject. All of a sudden I was

among people who were quite serious about _how_ the dances were done. In

rehearsals we didn't do as many dances as the SCA tries to do, but we worked

on doing them well. And I loved it.

Earlier this month I had to decide whether or not I could presently continue

with that dance troupe. I had to decide not to, but it was with some regret.

SCA dancing isn't as fun anymore -- and perhaps it was already becoming so

before I joined the dance troupe.

When the troupe performed, they did so with the intent of recreating the

manners and the motions and the attitudes of the people who would have

performed the dances. There is a grace and beauty to their performances.

If we got a little less polished doing Gathering Peascods in rehearsal, Ingrid

would chastise us by saying "You're supposed to be in court, not the SCA!"

A few of the troupe members are SCAdian and the rest know what Ingrid thinks of

the style of SCA dancing - namely that we lack it. The next time I did

Gathering Peascods at an event, I had to agree with her. I'm afraid serious

square dancers will be offended if I say it looked like a hoedown. Serious

square dancers look much nicer than we did. It was sort of a free for all.

Does that mean that I think the SCA is "doing it wrong" or "ought to be doing

it differently" or that I'm going to lead a movement to change it? Nahw.

Personally, I think people who are certain that they know how to improve the

SCA and will show other people the true light just offend the populous. And

who am I to criticize other people's fun? Goodness knows, my garb or cooking

or something else probably doesn't meet some people's standards.

However,... I do theatre in the SCA (as some of you may have gathered by now),

and I'm planning on putting together a masque that includes dances as

performance pieces. (See earlier posting on dance as performance) If I'm

going to ask an audience to watch that dancing, the performers can't just know

the steps. They've _got_to_do_them_well. That's one of my criteria for

performing for a public audience - even one as charitable as the SCA.

If you (whoever the you's are) want to see dancing done with care as well as

enthusiasm, think of putting together a masque where care is important.

Hopefully next spring I'll have the theatrical blueprint for a masque (includin

speeches, appropriate dances to the subject and time, descriptions of scenic

devices and music that is also appropriate). IF I do this, anyone who wants to

use it is welcome to do so. If you want to start on something now, I've got

an article I wrote on the development of mummings, disguisings and masques that

will give you a start. There are sources listed in the bibliography that will

be useful for further research. Drop me a line if you want a copy.

And who knows,... Maybe some of the people who watch the piece will decide

that they'd like to start dancing with care as well as enthusiasm!

Catrin o'r Rhyd For Kathryn Gandek

Barony of Carolingia Boston area

East Kingdom kgandek%mitvmc.bitnet at mitvma.mit.edu

From: Pat.McGregor at um.cc.umich.EDU

Date: 25 Sep 91 17:27:50 GMT

Organization: The Internet

I forwarded some of the discussion about OOP dances and why some

dances are more interested than others to my local CDSS (Country

Dance and Song Society, formerly the English Folk Society)

representative and dance teacher, and these are her comments back.

The CDSS headquarters in Boston have a LOT of research material

available on early dances. In addition, they sponsor a camp every

summer that has two weeks on early dances, specializing in stuff

pre-1650.

Siobhan Medhbh O'Roarke Pat McGregor

Barony Northwoods / Shire Cynnabar 3638 Greenook Blvd

Internet: SMOR at um.cc.umich.edu Ann Arbor, MI 48103-9143

BITNET: Userw02v at umichum (313) 426-3506

---(Forwarded from: Erna-Lynne.Bogue at ub.cc.umich.edu, Dated: Mon, 23 Sep 91 16:20:22 EDT)---

Date: Mon, 23 Sep 91 16:20:22 EDT

From: Erna-Lynne.Bogue at ub.cc.umich.edu

To: patmcg at merit.edu

Clearly these folks have never tried to learn Step Stately. It's

an ECD that is *so* tough that my performance group has to practice

it at every session and even then it's only reliable in performance

for about 50% of them. It's also got one of the best claims of having

been done pre-1600 of any Playford: it's in the 1st Edition, the music

is clearly from an earlier period (and the good tune that is usually

substituted for the original terrible one is also from an earlier period)

and it is designed to end so that the entire set of 3 couples honors

The Presence (ranking nobility) -- marking it as having court dance

origins. If all SCA groups work at learning dances in about the same

way that the ones I saw, then it's not surprising they think they are

simple: they're only doing things that are simple. Sigh.

The other thing that is interesting is that whoever these folks are,

they're completely ignoring the question of steps used in ECD. We

do it today the way it was first reconstructed, when no step info was

available. But there's been a lot of research in the last 10 years.

If one wanted to do ECD authentically, the steps are a bear to learn --

I know, I did a few weeks of workshop and finally remembered (luckily!)

that I was into ECD for pleasure and community, not for authenticity.

It was clear that attention to authenticity at that level would make it

not as much fun,and there wouldn't be a community there. But if the

bransles are being taught *with* correct steps while the ECD is being

taught (inauthentically) *without* correct steps, then of course it will

seem easier to folks for whom footwork isn't easy.

elb

From: justin at inmet.camb.inmet.COM (Justin du Coeur MKA Mark Waks)

Date: 26 Sep 91 21:44:32 GMT

Organization: The Internet

Re: English Country Dance

Siobhan forwards:

>Clearly these folks have never tried to learn Step Stately. It's

>an ECD that is *so* tough that my performance group has to practice

>it at every session and even then it's only reliable in performance

>for about 50% of them.

A fine point, and a dance worth learning if you're into grotesquely

tricky ECD. They've done this one down in the Barony of the Bridge (RI),

which is where I learned it. It's one of the only EC dances I've done

that I wasn't able to teach (or even *start* to teach) after doing it

four or five times.

>The other thing that is interesting is that whoever these folks are,

>they're completely ignoring the question of steps used in ECD. We

>do it today the way it was first reconstructed, when no step info was

>available. But there's been a lot of research in the last 10 years.

>If one wanted to do ECD authentically, the steps are a bear to learn --

>I know, I did a few weeks of workshop and finally remembered (luckily!)

>that I was into ECD for pleasure and community, not for authenticity.

>It was clear that attention to authenticity at that level would make it

>not as much fun,and there wouldn't be a community there. But if the

>bransles are being taught *with* correct steps while the ECD is being

>taught (inauthentically) *without* correct steps, then of course it will

>seem easier to folks for whom footwork isn't easy.

Now *this* intrigues the hell out of me. My understanding was that we

still really didn't know the "correct" steps for earlier ECD. (The later

dances are essentially Baroque, but I thought that the current theory

was that the baroque steps evolved in over the course of things.) Do we

have a reasonably good idea of what 1651 ECD steps looked like? If so,

can anyone point me to some sources? This is *definitely* Letter of

Dance fodder...

-- Justin du Coeur

Eternal Dance Mavin

From: mjl at rutabaga.Rational.COM (Matthew Larsen)

Date: 21 Sep 91 20:42:54 GMT

DRS at UNCVX1.BITNET ("Dennis R. Sherman") writes:

>I'm enjoying the discussion of why Out Of Period (OOP) dances are so popular.

>It's a question I've been trying to answer for quite a while, and haven't

>found an answer I'm happy with yet.

>The answer I get most often when I ask comparatively uneducated dancers why

>they like particular dances, especially English country, is "They're fun!."

>When I ask why they don't like certain dances, particularly bransles, the

>answer is "They're boring." Relative complexity doesn't seem to enter into

>consideration.

I think part of what most dance teachers don't notice is sort of personal

complexity. By this I mean roughly that any dance that a person doesn't

know is more complex than one they do know. I personally don't think that

burgundian basse dances are any more complex than a lot of english country

dances, but they do have a whole different vocabulary of steps and paterns.

So when someone encounters them for the first time they feel as though they

are more complex, when what they really are is different. Most people who

aren't stepjocks (I think that's a great term) don't want to feel as though

they are beginners again and have to start over; they want to do things that

they feel competent in and have some familiarity with.

But, I hear you ask, why is that people _everywhere_ consider English Country

the easiest kind of dancing? I think there are a couple of reasons. First

of all, many of the dances are easy, and you can build up to the harder ones.

Second (and I think this is very important) most dance instructors teach

English Country first, partly because _they_ think it's easy and partly

because its what they learned first and people like it. But I think the most

important reason that _everyone_ thinks ECD is easy and _everyone_ does it

is that it is the only form of (nearly) period dance that you can learn

from a mundane source in almost any city large enough to support a large

SCA group. As a result, ECD came into the SCA from a variety of people who

all learned it in the mundane world. I don't mean to suggest that ECD is in

any way bad because of this, but I do think that it has contributed to people

viewing it as "easy" dance.

>So, what makes one dance fun, and another one boring? Well, that's going to

>vary quite a bit for different people, I suspect. For absolute beginners,

>the dance they can manage successfully with the least learning time is going

>to be what they find fun, I suspect - hence the popularity of the SCA Maltese

>Branle. For people that know a little more, often interaction with a

>partner will be fun, leading to the popularity of the simpler English country

>dances, and the choreographed pavanes. And for people that know a lot,

>i.e. the "stepjocks" (I kind of like the term, actually, even if I are one :-)

>dancing *any* dance with historically accurate form and style is fun.

Once again, I think for most beginning dancers and even for a lot of

intermediate people, fun is what they already know. But if you work from

that point, it means that it is possible to get people to think of galliards

and 15th c. Italian dancing as fun: all you have to do is train a new

generation of dancers by teaching them that stuff first ("That's all??!!!" I

hear you cry. Well, nobody said it would happen overnight).

>One thing I've noticed is that 'fun' for the people in the middle group,

>those that know some but not a lot, is often tied to energy expenditure.

>The more active a dance is (or is able to be made) the better they like it.

>Of course, this doesn't explain why Galliards are not generally more popular.

If I'm right, all you have to do is teach galliards before you teach

other things. I'm convinced I can teach people to do a galliard as guickly

as I can teach them to do Strip the Willow or many of the other "bouncy"

dances. The only thing that might stand in the way of this is that

it takes longer to learn to galliard really well than it does to learn

something like Strip the Willow. And that means that Lord Beginner will

look at the dance master and may feel that he will never be that good, and

give up trying. But I hope that most people don't approach dancing as

something they can learn in a day. If so, we'll never really make any

headway with that kind of person anyway.

> Robyyan Torr d'Elandris Dennis R. Sherman

> Kapellenberg, Windmaster's Hill Chapel Hill, NC

> Atlantia drs at uncvx1.bitnet

Geoffrey Mathias

mjl at rational.rational.com

From: dani at netcom.COM (Dani Zweig)

Date: 21 Sep 91 22:36:09 GMT

Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

mjl at rutabaga.Rational.COM (Matthew Larsen):

>>Of course, this doesn't explain why Galliards are not generally more popular.

>If I'm right, all you have to do is teach galliards before you teach

>other things. I'm convinced I can teach people to do a galliard as guickly

>as I can teach them...

There's another problem with galliards, especially for beginners: They're

generally taught unchoreographed. For a beginner -- especially one who

has not done other kinds of dancing mundanely -- it is *very* difficult

to ad-lib even an easy set of steps. One of the characteristics shared

by the popular dances within the SCA is that every step of the dance is

laid out in advance, so the beginner can in some meaningful way think

"I know that dance."

-----

Dani of the Seven Wells

dani at netcom.com

From: jstone at microsoft.com (Jeff STONE)

Date: 25 Sep 91 19:38:16 GMT

Organization: Microsoft Corp.

Tristan here;

In article <90e202Bk00Uw01 at JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> branwen at flipper.ccc.amdahl.com (Karen Williams) writes:

>In article <9109231305.aa13069 at mc.lcs.mit.edu> DRS at UNCVX1.BITNET ("Dennis R. Sherman") writes:

>>To take the last part first, I agree, but how many people do *any* dance

>>really well? Given the total number of people that dance at least a

>>little, I'd say a very, very small proportion dance really well. I'd

>>even hazard a guess that there are many more really good fighters than

>>there are really good dancers, although there are probably more people

>>that dance than people that fight.

>Yes, but there are many, many more fighter practices than there are dance

>practices, and many, many more tourneys than there are balls.

>Branwen ferch Emrys

>The Mists, the West

>--

> Karen Williams

> branwen at flipper.ras.amdahl.com

I would never suggest that I myself have much skill at dance, but I do

love to do so. The Barony of Madrone in An Tir holds dance practice every

week, and our Dance Master & Mistress usually try to have dancing at any

event they attend. Their efforts have certainly bettered my skills at

dance, so I'd suggest that Branwen's observation about more dance practice

leads to better (and more of them!) dancers is a true dictum. Our practices

generally see two dozen or more frolicsome folk turn out. Strangely, we

very consistently have a noticeable imbalance of the sexes--we have far more

lords in attendance than ladies. I have no clue as to why this is; when I

roved in other lands than Fair An Tir, 'twas the ladies that were more

inclined to dance than the menfolk.

So, should any of you dancers from other Kingdoms ever find yourselves in

this lovely realm, do look us up! We'll chat, and then perhaps a bransle?

Dreaming the Dream,

Tristan

SCA Mundanely

Tristan Gryphonroke Jeff Stone

Barony of Madrone jstone at microsoft.com

Kingdom of An Tir

From: pears at latcs1.lat.oz.au (Arnold N Pears)

Date: 27 Sep 91 02:32:02 GMT

Organization: Comp Sci, La Trobe Uni, Australia

In article <9109261038.aa02541 at mc.lcs.mit.edu> KGANDEK at mitvmc.mit.EDU (Kathryn Gandek) writes:

>I confess to being of the technique is fun school. However, how I learned

>renaissnce dance may have something to do with it. My first exposure (after

>a dozen or so years of ballet) was a college course I took for credit (i.e. we

>actually had to study as well as dance). A few years later I found the SCA and

>attended some dance practices and danced at events. Eventually, I started t

>spending more time visiting at events than dancing, although I didn't stop

>to think much about why. Then I joined a renaissance dance troupe run by Dr.

>Ingrid Brainard, a scholar and teacher of the subject. All of a sudden I was

>among people who were quite serious about _how_ the dances were done. In

>rehearsals we didn't do as many dances as the SCA tries to do, but we worked

>on doing them well. And I loved it.

>Earlier this month I had to decide whether or not I could presently continue

>with that dance troupe. I had to decide not to, but it was with some regret.

>SCA dancing isn't as fun anymore -- and perhaps it was already becoming so

>before I joined the dance troupe.

I am very familiar with the type of dancing you describe here,

and have been a member of a performing dance group in Melbourne

Australia run by a lady called Helga Hill, who teaches dance

here and at Dartington in England every year.

I remember having a special seminar and dance lesson with Dr. Brainard

when she visited our troup in 1987 or so. While there were some

stylistic differences her attitude was similar to ours.

>When the troupe performed, they did so with the intent of recreating the

>manners and the motions and the attitudes of the people who would have

>performed the dances. There is a grace and beauty to their performances.

>If we got a little less polished doing Gathering Peascods in rehearsal, Ingrid

>would chastise us by saying "You're supposed to be in court, not the SCA!"

>A few of the troupe members are SCAdian and the rest know what Ingrid thinks of

>the style of SCA dancing - namely that we lack it. The next time I did

>Gathering Peascods at an event, I had to agree with her. I'm afraid serious

>square dancers will be offended if I say it looked like a hoedown. Serious

>square dancers look much nicer than we did. It was sort of a free for all.

I find this very apt. The SCA in general teach dances in a loose manner.

Much of the teaching I see is of the now jump right a bit and step left and

right turn over shoulder etc.

The problem I have with this is in the precision in execution, and

knowledge of steps.

The precision comes only from practice and almost

everone will get that if they keep at it and practice dances to as close

to perfection as the group can achieve.

The knowledge of individual steps is a REAL PROBLEM!!! At least here

in Lochac dances seem to be taught as units. That is the steps are not

presented and divided out and identified, this is particularly true of

the Italian dances, which for me seem to be the ones that really need it.

The result is that it takes a long time to teach a new dance. If everyone

knows the steps and can perform a, saffice, or dopij espangola, etc

then the teaching consists mostly of the interpretation, pattern on

the floor and gesture. Admittedly in very hard dances it can take even

people expert in the steps a long time to remember the sequence of

steps and get them exactly in time, but they do produce a more

defined and graceful product. Well that is my opinion anyway!!

>Does that mean that I think the SCA is "doing it wrong" or "ought to be doing

>it differently" or that I'm going to lead a movement to change it? Nahw.

>Personally, I think people who are certain that they know how to improve the

>SCA and will show other people the true light just offend the populous. And

>who am I to criticize other people's fun? Goodness knows, my garb or cooking

>or something else probably doesn't meet some people's standards.

Yes I agree, I have run into great hostility trying to teach dance

steps before the dance. People want to be told to step left etc, without

the work involved in refining the motions. This is sad because it is hard

to dance in a meaningful way and interact with your partner if you are

being wild and uncoordinated, many of the later Italian dances offer

great scope to flirt and sometimes even touch your partner, these

are dances of subtlety and mime, which are rendered much less by

gung ho performance traditions.

>However,... I do theatre in the SCA (as some of you may have gathered by now),

>and I'm planning on putting together a masque that includes dances as

>performance pieces. (See earlier posting on dance as performance) If I'm

>going to ask an audience to watch that dancing, the performers can't just know

>the steps. They've _got_to_do_them_well. That's one of my criteria for

>performing for a public audience - even one as charitable as the SCA.

This is an idea I have had a few times too. I would be interested in

any bibliography you could provide.

Arenwald von Hagenburg

Arnold Pears. Computer Sci Dept ACSNET : pears at latcs1.oz

La Trobe Uni, Bundoora 3083. "Well here we all are then."

Ph (03) 479-1144 -ME

From: donna at envy.kwantlen.bc.ca (Donna Hrynkiw)

Date: 27 Sep 91 22:40:00 GMT

Organization: The Internet

Greetings to the Rialto from Elizabeth Braidwod.

Catrin o'r Rhyd For <KGANDEK at mitvmc.mit.edu> has some interesting things to

say about Dance in the SCA:

> When the troupe performed, they did so with the intent of recreating the

> manners and the motions and the attitudes of the people who would have

> performed the dances. There is a grace and beauty to their performances.

> If we got a little less polished doing Gathering Peascods in rehearsal,

> Ingrid would chastise us by saying "You're supposed to be in court, not

> the SCA!" A few of the troupe members are SCAdian and the rest know what

> Ingrid thinks of the style of SCA dancing - namely that we lack it. The

> next time I did Gathering Peascods at an event, I had to agree with her.

> I'm afraid serious square dancers will be offended if I say it looked

> like a hoedown. Serious square dancers look much nicer than we did. It

> was sort of a free for all.

Now, before I comment on Catrin's posting, let me say that I'm not an

expert in dance and that months go by between times I step out on the

dance floor. But there is a subtle criticizm in this posting and it bothers

me. (No offence taken or intended, Catrin.)

There are several clues to what I think is wrong with this paragraph and

they are: "performed", "performances", "rehearsal" and "serious". I believe

that most people in the SCA dance for the pure enjoyment of moving in time

to the music and flirting with their partners. There are not performers,

there is no audience, there are only participants. If I was concerned

with the way I looked while I danced, I would slink away in abject shame

and never dance again.

When I think of participant dancing in period, I think of it as the medieval

equivalent to a modern country wedding reception. People dancing for the

pure joy of socializing and moving to the music. Those people don't go

to rehearsals or even dance practices. And while it may not appear graceful,

it is certainly fun.

Like I said, I'm no dance expert. But I don't think that grace and beauty

are the point of the dance for most SCA folk. Now, if you're talking about

performance dance, that's a different story.

> And who knows,... Maybe some of the people who watch the piece will

> decide that they'd like to start dancing with care as well as enthusiasm!

Implying that we don't dance with care now? Maybe you're right - we don't

care what we look like, only that we're having fun.

E.B.

--------------------

Elizabeth "E.B." Braidwood Donna Hrynkiw

Lions Gate, An Tir Kwantlen College

donna at envy.kwantlen.bc.ca Surrey, B.C.

Per bend sinister Or and vert, two bendlets enhanced above two holly leaves

all counterchanged.

From: mjl at rutabaga.Rational.COM (Matthew Larsen)

Date: 28 Sep 91 17:46:35 GMT

Pat.McGregor at um.cc.umich.EDU writes:

>I forwarded some of the discussion about OOP dances and why some

>dances are more interested than others to my local CDSS (Country

>Dance and Song Society, formerly the English Folk Society)

>representative and dance teacher, and these are her comments back.

>Siobhan Medhbh O'Roarke Pat McGregor

>Barony Northwoods / Shire Cynnabar 3638 Greenook Blvd

>Internet: SMOR at um.cc.umich.edu Ann Arbor, MI 48103-9143

>BITNET: Userw02v at umichum (313) 426-3506

>From: Erna-Lynne.Bogue at ub.cc.umich.edu

>Clearly these folks have never tried to learn Step Stately. It's

>an ECD that is *so* tough that my performance group has to practice

>it at every session and even then it's only reliable in performance

>for about 50% of them. It's also got one of the best claims of having

>been done pre-1600 of any Playford: it's in the 1st Edition, the music

>is clearly from an earlier period (and the good tune that is usually

>substituted for the original terrible one is also from an earlier period)

>and it is designed to end so that the entire set of 3 couples honors

>The Presence (ranking nobility) -- marking it as having court dance

>origins. If all SCA groups work at learning dances in about the same

>way that the ones I saw, then it's not surprising they think they are

>simple: they're only doing things that are simple. Sigh.

This is pretty valid criticism. It's true that there are much more

complicated dances in First Playford than we are doing, not only

Step Stately, but Fain I Would and a number of others. On the other

hand, I think that one of the reasons that these aren't taught is that

their complexity lies in their complex pattern, not in step complexity.

This in turn means that if any one of the six people in the Step Stately

set don't know what they're doing, the whole thing falls apart. Most of

the dances we teach can suffer through having a beginner who knows almost

nothing in them (although when you get too many beginners in, it still

breaks down). And I'm not talking just English Country dances here.

Even the bransles which do have complex and fast foot work don't break

down just because someone loses their place. Who cares whether the next

person over can galliard at all? Most of the dances from Caroso and Negri

have tough patterns, but they require so much step knowledge that no

beginner is ever going to be doing them anyway. Still, this is a valid

criticism, and maybe we ought to be working toward some of the more

complicated Playford dances.