[SCA-Dance] Fw: Help with some Itailian Dances

[Mary Railing]

I've posted a video of the more common 16th century Italian dance steps on Youtube <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kPgDi0NNBc>
It's rather rough because I'm just learning how to use the video editing software, and I haven't got the hang of smooth transitions yet.  I would appreciate any comments or suggestions people have, especially from people who don't already know how to do these steps.  Do my instructions make sense?  What else could I add that would be helpful? (Film from more angles?  Show longer clips of just dancing?)  If I can get the bugs worked out, I plan to do a video of the more "kicky" steps next, as well as how to do some specific dances.  We filmed Contrapasso in Due already, but I haven't got it edited yet.  If anyone in or near Bloomington, Indiana wants to be a dancer in future videos, please let me know.  I really need men who are able to do the livelier dances..

--Urraca



________________________________
From: John Farmer <sonic123456 at yahoo.com>
To: Mary Railing <mrailing2 at yahoo.com>
Cc: sca-dance at sca-dance.org
Sent: Tuesday, April 7, 2009 9:49:00 AM
Subject: Re: [SCA-Dance] Fw:  Help with some Itailian Dances


Thank you very much for all your help.  I appreciate it.  If you can make some videos and post them to YouTube, that would be awesome.
 
Thanks again,
Eadric

--- On Mon, 4/6/09, Mary Railing <mrailing2 at yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Mary Railing <mrailing2 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [SCA-Dance] Fw: Help with some Itailian Dances
To: sonic123456 at yahoo.com
Cc: sca-dance at sca-dance.org
Date: Monday, April 6, 2009, 10:53 PM


After looking at all those Youtube videos, it's occurred to me that it
would be possible for me to post dance instruction videos on Youtube.  If you
can wait until May, I'll see if I can film folks at my shire's dance
practice doing these dances, and some "how to do Italian steps" bits. 
We do a lot of Italian dance in Mynydd Seren.  The only one I can't help you
with is Bassa Honorata.  In thirty years in the SCA I've never seen this
dance. I'd really suggest you substitute something more commonly done in the
SCA, such as Rostiboulli, or one of the simpler Cascarde, such as Castellana.

As for music, in theory you can get free MP3s for all of these dances from Eric
Praetzel's SCA Dance Music MP3 Collection 
http://ieee.uwaterloo.ca/praetzel/mp3-cd/index.html#Heading9
That URL leads to a long list of various print and recorded music in MP3 or
RealAudio.  However I've not had much luck getting these to download and
play (on a Mac) and the sound quality on many is not real good.

If you are willing to spend some money, tracks can be downloaded from iTunes or
Amazon for Amoroso, Gelosia, Petit Rien (I use Musica Subterranea's
recordings of these), and Saltarello.  Note that "saltarello" is a
dance type, like "waltz".  A search on that word in Amazon yields over
400 MP3s!  If the dance you are looking for is the SCA choreography known as
Saltarello la Regina, you should buy the track listed in Amazon as
"Saltarello (C. 1400)" by Ulsamer Collegium, or another recording of
that same saltarello tune. (Corvus Corax has a really loud, raucous version that
I think is cool, but it's probably not appropriate for a "Venetian
ball.")  If what you want is music for a free-form saltarello, then just
pick a tune you like, avoiding one of the many symphonic recordings that have
saltarello in the name.
The only recording I know of for Contrapasso in Due is a CD by the Dragonscale
Consort which I think is out of print, but since they are based in Indianapolis,
I can find out if it is available if you want.

La Spagna is another tricky tune to search for.  There are very many
undanceable arrangements of the Spagna tenor.  Poking around in Amazon, I was
unable to locate a recording that I was sure would work from just listening to
samples. A good,danceable arrangement of La Spagna, as well as Contentezza
d'Amore, Amoroso, and Petit Rien can be found on the CD "Courtly Dances
of Western Europe" available from
http://www.peterdur.us/dance/shop.htm#CDWE

I'm sure other people on this list have their own preferred sources for
some of this music.

--Urraca

----- Original Message ----
From: John Farmer 
To: sca-dance at sca-dance.org
Sent: Monday, April 6, 2009 11:47:52 AM
Subject: Re: [SCA-Dance] Fw:  Help with some Itailian Dances

I must say that I am new enough to the SCA that I don't know what's
danced throughout Artemisia, I only know what we dance in the Barony of Arn
Hold.  We haven't done most of these dances.  That's why I'm needing
help to learn these dances.  We are discussing the idea of having a Venetian
Ball for our Masked Ball next January and these are the dances we are looking at
having for the Ball.  We don't have anyone in Arn Hold that knows these
dances, so I am having to learn them from any source I can find.  I have the
dance steps, but no music and I have never seen them done, so I don't know
if I'm performing the steps properly.  Thank you all for your help so far,
you've been a great help.  Any other videos or information about this would
be very much appreciated.

Eadric Hameresmithe