[SCA-Dance] on Chirintana

Rachel/Judith judithsca at aol.com
Mon Mar 28 12:10:12 EDT 2011


Salve, Galeran!
     I did not perceive that you were slighting the music in any way, I assure you! :) I have often seen the same issue, with dancers attempting to put all three continenze in the beginning. Some teaching tips that have worked for me...I emphasize that one unit of the procession consists of "2 Cont., 1 D and 1 more cont. right, to free the left foot so that each unit can begin with the left; the double is sandwiched by the cont.". Furthermore, before allowing the dancers to dance the procession, I first play the procession music for them so that they can listen to it and imagine/learn to hear the steps in the music. This all seems to help, and thereafter I generally only have one or two people who still have an issue, if anyone does.
     I am extremely glad that people are actually doing this dance, although I wonder how the grapevine effect will end up mutating it...

Judith












-----Original Message-----
From: sca-dance-request at sca-dance.org
To: sca-dance at sca-dance.org
Sent: Mon, Mar 28, 2011 6:00 pm
Subject: Sca-dance Digest, Vol 65, Issue 6



essage: 1
ate: Fri, 25 Mar 2011 14:40:15 -0700
rom: Brian Sidlauskas <bsidlauskas at gmail.com>
ubject: [SCA-Dance] On Chirintana
o: sca-dance at sca-dance.org
essage-ID: <4D8D0BBF.1000609 at gmail.com>
ontent-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

i Judith,
I should clarify that I didn't intend to imply that there's any problem 
ith the length or the music, quality of the music or choreography for 
hirintana . . . Gaita's recording is in fact of very high musical 
uality and the steps fit just fine.  I was just making the observation 
hat some dancers seems to have trouble hearing how the steps fit the 
usic, particularly with respect to the continenze. I think the issue is 
hat some people tend to internalize the step grouping as one double 
ollowed by three contineze once the sequence begins to repeat. That 
onceptual step grouping is of course not aligned with the musical phrases.
Once the heys begin, I generally see many fewer confused looks.
In any case, it is a delightful dance and one that I do teach from time 
o time.
-- Galeran



More information about the Sca-dance mailing list