[SCA-Dance] Other KWDS reviews and news

[Del]

Hi,

Now that it's all over for another year or two, for those who missed
it here are some other news and reviews.

KWDS started with some evening dancing on Thursday and launched right
into classes all day Friday, Saturday, and on Sunday morning.  Highlights
of the Friday sessions for me were "Fifteenth Century, North of Italy" where
we got some learnable and memorisable basse danses from Mara (these things
normally slip out of my head fairly quickly), "Triple Terpsichore" or
what to do when you only have 3 people at dance practice, and Greg's
Santucci class.  I also taught Chiara Stella quickly after I had had a
chance to teach it on Thursday night and it was requested again.

Friday night's dancing was in the hall at Mary Gates Commons.  The stonework
was excellent however the floor (concrete) could have been a bit more
forgiving.  It wasn't too bad, however, and I've danced on worse.  It all
ended a bit too soon for me, I was on my second wind and ready to keep going.

Saturday classes started at 9am and I went along to "Reconstruction Techniques"
and "How to teach anything", mostly because they were sitting down classes
and I was still feeling a bit sore from last night's dancing.  After a few
sitting down classes I felt like moving about, however, and inflicted the "Fun
for 4 Couples with Playford" class on myself despite really wanting to go to
the "Improvisation Principles" class.

After lunch we launched into the serious stuff, and while the "Day of Dance"
classes occupied the beginners and intermediate dancers there were classes
on the more complex dances taught in a single session at KWDS.  Anna Mansbridge
from Seattle Early dance taught Celeste Giglio, and really only got through
the first half of the dance in a 2 hour session.  It's one of those irregular
balletti from Nobilta di Dame with several time changes including both galliard
and canary sections.  Most of us went away with something to work on but were
having trouble keeping up with the pace of the class.  After that I taught
the extension of my Il Canario class, with several couples coming along to
learn this, including improvisation techniques and spending some time
reconstructing and learning passeggi from Lupi.  I handed out facsimile copies
of the canary section from Lupi's book, so again it was something to take away
and learn from.

Saturday evening's dance was a slightly more formal affair, with there being
a few presentation dances from Seattle Early Dance, including Celeste Giglio
that the group had spent 6 months learning so I heard.  They did 3 other dances
including Leggiadria Marina and Spagnoletto Nuovo.  I have to admit to being
slightly ticked when a performance group such as this comes to an SCA event
and performs a dance that we (or at least I) know relatively well, unless they
do it exceptionally well, but seeing something more complex like Celeste Giglio
danced through with barely a foot wrong was a treat.

During a break in the dancing, I asked a number of the laurels present to gather
and witness my passing an apprentice belt to Darius the Dancer.  It's going to
be an interesting long-distance relationship but we all have email these days.
Even more momentous was during the next break in the dancing when Darius stood
at the front of the hall amid all of the assembled dancers as he asked Lynette
to marry him, and presented her with a ring of betrothal.  There were many hugs!

Saturday evening dancing continued into the small hours as we were able to get
access to the classroom areas, so several of us took it in turns to teach and
call a dance.  I think I taught Merry Merry Milkmaids which is very popular out
in Lochac but hardly ever seen when I travel to the USA.  There were a couple
of lowlights -- I fail to understand why people need to teach Posties Jig or
that thing (Sweet Kate?) choreographed to a modern rock song.  However there was
also tourdion tag and we were all entertained by Izzy (Trahaearn's daughter)
chasing Trahaearn all over the dance floor.

I got up late on Sunday and realised I hadn't stretched enough on Saturday night
and so my legs were in a world of pain.  However I did make the Dances by
Request class I was scheduled to teach at 10am, and managed to get through
(I think) Newcastle, Chestnut, La Volta, and Gracca Amorosa quickly at the
end.  I think my new teaching method for La Volta is working out, although I
felt a bit guilty at teaching my version at the end of KWDS after having
missed Mara's class on it at the start of KWDS.  Most people seemed to be
having fun with it.

The highlight of KWDS for me is still the Caroso Ball, and the event ended
with that.  Slowly we remembered our manners during the ball, asking ladies
to dance, returning the ladies to their seats afterwards, never declining
an invitation to dance, and flirting within our means.  I do wish more of
the men would wear swords to dance, and capes would be nice too, however
I understand the logistics in travelling with all of that kit.

Met old friends of course -- Janelyn and Trahaearn still managed to be sociable
despite what must have been a storm of work they got through during the event,
Darius, Lowry, Lynette, Gwommy, Adele, Jody, Alaric, Mara, Elsbeth, Deonna,
Urraca and others too many to mention, and met some nice new folks as well
including Emmeline, Ritkitsa and Delphine from Caid (hey Giueseppe and Giles,
where were you guys?) and Niccolo from somewhere near there (?) which
just goes to show that there are dancers on the west coast other than Gregory
and Geoffrey.  There was also a good turn out from around An Tir including
Brian and Adele and her gentleman (can't remember your name dude, sorry) from
further north, and several from the local area including Trahaearn's 3 students
(of which I can only remember one name, Sara, who I'd met before of course).

Photos?  Yes I'm sure there were some.  Here are the only ones I could find
at the moment though:

http://oort.com/goddess/sca/knownworld/

-- 
Del