[SCA-Dance] on Chirintana

Rachel/Judith judithsca at aol.com
Tue Mar 29 12:09:44 EDT 2011



Hi Darius!
     Each "set" of the procession consists of 2.5 bars of 4/4 music, means half a bar for each cont. and 1 bar per double (or two beats for cont. and four per double). Does that make sense? As you said, hard to describe dancing in writing - as we know from resontructing dances from manuscripts!

Judith
------------------------------
Message: 2
ate: Tue, 29 Mar 2011 01:30:42 -0400
rom: David Learmonth <david.a.learmonth at gmail.com>
ubject: Re: [SCA-Dance] on Chirintana
o: sca-dance <sca-dance at sca-dance.org>
essage-ID:
   <AANLkTi=Nc3eAGXy06-9wMfzJs3L876d3oQq9HxCFP5fA at mail.gmail.com>
ontent-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Hi Judith!
I had been trying to remember how you taught it.  As I think I have seen the
irst 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,
ouble forward, Cont R) repeat], however I believe that it was danced slower
han 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
uestion, over email, when I don't have the music in front of me.  But
asically, is that first portion danced "slow", or a bit more "spritely"?
Remembering the music off hand, I roughly count 5 "beats", where each
ontinenze would take 1, and the double would take 2.  That would be
ounting slower beats, but at the length of steps I've mentioned, would be a
uicker dance for that portion.
I think to dance it at half that speed, would put it across the natural
hrasing, from how it feels for me.
Glancing at the Terp book, I guess we didn't exactly put in the number of
ars per section.  But that is probably because it is to be repeated for as
ong as the musicians play it.  Also, for those of us who aren't musicians,
e might have the same sort of issue as I am citing here to try to pin down
ow long a section is in "bars".  :)
Anyway, thanks for the info! If you have a video clip of the dance handy,
hat would be useful.  Otherwise, I'll just learn it properly at Pennsic
his 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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 From: sca-dance-request at sca-dance.org
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 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
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 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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