[SCA-Dance] "Boring" dances, was: Quadran Pavan

[Jane & Mark Waks]

Bruce Padget wrote:
> 2.  Should we be seeing something we're not?  Beauty can be found in perfect
> execution of simple movements, as Urraca reminded us with bassedance at KWDS
> .  Yerz ago, I described the Old Measures to a friend who's a figure skating
> fan, and she said, "Oh, they're just like compulsories!"  She may be right.

Just so. Based on my admittedly limited knowledge of the setting, I tend 
to tell the dancers to think of themselves as young law students, 
dancing before the older councilors, to show that they have enough 
social graces to be allowed out in polite society.

Looking at it another way, the Old Measures seem, in large part, to have 
been part of the *ritual* of Inns. All cultures need ritual: we moderns 
just aren't quite used to thinking of dance in those terms...

				-- Justin