[SCA-Dance] SCA Created Dances

White, John white at drexel.edu
Thu Apr 29 13:50:39 EDT 2010


> From: Michael L. Squires
> 
> When I left Mynydd Seren in 1984 I don't remember doing palming; it was
> part of the dance when I returned in 1990, at least among some dancers.
> The source is obviously the Manschafte, which was still being danced at
> the time.  I know I started inserting reverences into some of the
> passages because the music left too much empty space after the steps
> were completed; this happened before 1984.
> 
> Alan Culross
> 
While there are selected instances of Renaissance (and Baroque) dances
where you are not doing anything while the music plays, these are usually
instructional pauses (i.e. the manuscript says "stand" or "pause" or 
something similar).  If you are doing a dance and waiting while the musical
phrase catches up with you, then that's a pretty clear signal that you are
doing something categorically wrong.

HitW is one of the most obvious instances - the steps we use don't fit the
music, which is why these extra flourishes were added.  No one seems
concerned about finding the right steps, so the flourishes remain as
encoded pieces of the dance, rather than fillers for our imperfect knowledge.

This happens in other dances as well - oddly enough, often in OOP or GOOP
dances, as folks seem to figure that ECD was always done the way we do
Upon a Summer's Day or the like.  But it wasn't - additional step styles
were added, not to mention other mesural counts than 4/4 (or the proper
period equivalent).  There's a popular OOP dance (Sir Isaac's Maggot) in the 
East that's in 3 (or 6), and obviously so, too!, but you see people trying to 
fit standard 1st edition doubles to the rhythm and ending up totally out of 
sync ... or standing around waiting for the music to catch up to them.

It bugs me almost as much as the dance's out-of-periodness!

(Old motto:  If you're not dancing to the beat, you're just wandering around to
music.)
(New (additional) motto:  If you're going to do the dance, DO IT CORRECTLY!)

        \\Dafydd Cyhoeddwr


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