[SCA-Dance] Sca-dance Digest, Vol 37, Issue 3

[Barbara Webb]

Greg Lindahl wrote:
> The local folks here in the West still do the Burgundian bassadanze
> doubles in 2+2+2 style (3 equal steps in a double). They also do Lauro
> that way, even though it's Italian. In both cases they do it that way
> because of Ingrid Brainard's influence. I'd be interested to hear
> about places that *don't* do Lauro or the Burgundians with 3 equal
> steps.

Well, we don't. Trying to think back to when we started doing these, I 
think we might have tried a few different reconstructions with different 
tempi (including 2+2+2 and even 4/2) but have for quite a while settled on 
doing them as 3+3 with the doubles stepping on beats 1,3 & 4. And we have 
always done Italian bassadanza (including Lauro) that way, although we use 
a somewhat different style for the steps.

We tend to do quite a few different Burgundians, with the musicians 
practising improvising over the tenor and the dancers using the fast 
mnenomic system of grande/moyen/petit and perfect/imperfect sections to do 
the dance straight off without walking through it.

Can you tell me what the actual music source is for any common Burgundian 
basse danses that get done in 2+2+2, and for the music in your version of 
Lauro?

Using even beats, how is each double distinguished from the next (i.e. 
what stops 5 doubles becoming simply 15 steps) -  by raising or lowering, 
foot closing, or something else?

Yves answered in email my question about the timing of singles (Yves, did 
you mean this to go to the list?)

Is Danse de Cleves usually done the same way? I think it is at least 
partly because this tune (and similarly the tune written out for La 
franchoise nouvelle) seemed (to us) so obviously to have a 3+3 structure 
that we went with that by default for all other Burgundian dances. I can't 
recall ever seeing anyone teach or dance Danse de Cleves with equal length 
steps in the double.

cheers

Caitlin

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