[SCA-Dance] KWDS report (What I Did on my Summer Vacation...)

[Mary Railing]

Those who couldn't come missed a great event.  I spent a lot of my time in the "sit down" track getting geeky about things like step definitions and reconstruction issues, but I also learned some country dances that I could have learned at Terp (but missed the class there) and some German dances I would never have seen, except by coming to this event. Since I don't go to wars, one of the things that I like best about KWDS is being able to see the hardcore people who will travel a thousand miles for a dance event, as well as being able to meet people who are new to me.  (Some of the Canadians I talked to were astonished that people had come from the far corners of the US for this.)

For me,  the "take home" thought was being reminded how different Caroso's second book is from his first.  I focus on Il Ballarino, so I tend to view 16th century dance through that lens.  Learning "Furioso all'Italiana" which has essentially the same figures as the "Furioso" from Il Ballarino that we know, but very different steps, really made it clear to me how much the whole esthetic changed between the two books.

One of the ideas that came out of a class discussion was the idea of starting a separate online list for dance reconstruction as a Yahoo group, so that it would be easy to post documents and pictures for people to critique.  The thought was that if there were a moderator who would enforce house rules about constructive criticism and staying on topic and approve new members (so we don't get spambots), then it would be a way for people to get help with projects they are working on without getting "bad AS judge" critiques.  However, no one actually volunteered to start such a list.

I did announce that Mynydd Seren would like to host the next KWDS in 2011.  Since I had no specifics, I didn't give any. I said we'd been looking at site possibilities, including a convention hotel. (One thing that I did get out of conversations is that people would much rather have the event on a campus with wooden-floored rooms, than in carpet-over-concrete hotel ballrooms.)  I did emphasize that we have experience here running a Known World event, as well as running a large kingdom event.  I forgot to mention that I've also been on the concom for SF conventions, which is a lot more like what KWDS is like, especially if it ends up in a convention hotel, as we had discussed earlier.)  The concensus seemed to be that it would be better to wait until Pennsic to talk to Queen Judith about whether Drachenwald is still planning a bid for KWDS.  (Apparently she couldn't come to both KWDS and Pennsic, and she obviously couldn't skip Pennsic this year.)  So I
 think that Mynydd Seren may need to find an envoy (Alan? Corwyn?) to make our case at Pennsic, since neither Sionnain nor I go there.

As for non-dance content, we had a big sparklers for the 4th of July and sang the Star Spangled Banner and danced to My Country 'Tis of Thee.  Unlike IU where they try (ha! ha!) to keep alcohol off campus, McMaster has a pub on campus where I ate the first night.  The other two nights I went to a place called the Snooty Fox, where they have genuine pub grub like bangers & mash and yorkshire pudding that really tastes like pan drippings.  "Poutin" is french fries with gravy and cheese.  Apparently it's actually a Quebec thing, but it's a pub thing in Ontario, too.  Strongbow is good.  A pint is enough to make Urraca woozy.  The balls and post-revels had leftover food from Darius and Lynette's wedding, featuring PIES. (Guess who ate too much junk food ;))

Thea, I have your copy of the proceedings, as well as the handout from the German dance class, which wasn't in the proceedings.

--Urraca