[SCA-Dance] Twelve Goddesses triumph over snowstorm

[Meredith Courtney]

I'm *still* glowing from it, and can't resist telling this list how
pleased and proud I am of our production of the Vision of the Twelve
Goddesses, an early Stuart court masque, on March 17 in Carolingia.  The
entire event went very well indeed, in spite of a nor'easter dumping a
lot of snow on the area Friday night and early Saturday morning.

You can read the text of the masque, plus other interesting bits, at
www.twelvegoddesses.org.

A masque is, among other things, a dance performance.  (And I'd like to
thank Lady Clara Beaumont for taking over a lot of the dance and dance
step teaching for this - I really didn't need a stress fracture in my
foot just as we were starting rehearsals.)

Night opened our masque dancing a pavane.
Night and Sleep danced a pavane together, then a volta.
Sleep danced a galliard solo.
Mercury danced a galliard solo.
The Graces danced Bella Gioiosa (based on Etienne de Clermont's
reconstruction).
The Goddesses danced Contrapasso Nuovo (reconstruction by Clara Beaumont
and the Carolingian Accademia della Danza).
Night, Sleep, Mercury, and the Graces danced a coranto adapted from Sion
Andreas' reconstruction.
The entire cast danced a finale loosely based on the Pinwheel Game.

The Goddesses made their entrance from a mountain ... let me tell you,
four feet high doesn't sound like much, until you're looking at a
four-feet-high platform with 2 staircases.  Fortunately the down
staircase was very shallow, so we could descend majestically and safely
in our hoops.  (The costumes were great, too.)

We included the "audience participation" social dancing within the
masque (the Queen's alman, the Black alman, and a galliard).  That
sounds odd if you come at a masque thinking of it as a theatrical piece,
but it *does* work in context.

Have any of you done one of these?  I'd like to hear about it, if so.

Mara