[SCA-Dance] on Chirintana

[David Learmonth]

Hi Judith!

I had been trying to remember how you taught it.  As I think I have seen the
first portion danced slightly differently a few times as well.

One way I saw it was in the same arrangement you mention  [(Cont L, Cont R,
Double forward, Cont R) repeat], however I believe that it was danced slower
than what I remember from your teaching (if I am remembering correctly).

I'm trying to think of the best way to pose a music / dance related
question, over email, when I don't have the music in front of me.  But
basically, is that first portion danced "slow", or a bit more "spritely"?
 Remembering the music off hand, I roughly count 5 "beats", where each
Continenze would take 1, and the double would take 2.  That would be
counting slower beats, but at the length of steps I've mentioned, would be a
quicker dance for that portion.

I think to dance it at half that speed, would put it across the natural
phrasing, from how it feels for me.

Glancing at the Terp book, I guess we didn't exactly put in the number of
bars per section.  But that is probably because it is to be repeated for as
long as the musicians play it.  Also, for those of us who aren't musicians,
we might have the same sort of issue as I am citing here to try to pin down
how long a section is in "bars".  :)

Anyway, thanks for the info! If you have a video clip of the dance handy,
that would be useful.  Otherwise, I'll just learn it properly at Pennsic
this year.

Darius



On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 12:10 PM, Rachel/Judith <judithsca at aol.com> wrote:

>
> 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
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> -----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
>
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