[SCA-Dance] english dance before playford
Niki
janeeve2001 at yahoo.com
Mon Jan 23 17:01:21 EST 2012
hi there,
I have done extensive research on just this subject.
Truth be told the English did - in the 16th century - dance English Country Dances, many of which are found in Playford. However, I have not yet found manuscripts with more than a few steps describing the dancing... generally being 'hops' or describing fancy footwork.
I believe I was able to trace back 12 playford and 5-6 other ECDs, not found in Playford - or Lovelace... the most special of which (to me) being Sellengers Round, which I traced from the 3rd B edition playford to the 1550s in Ireland. (Again, no steps... so if anyone brings up that argument, I will ignore it.)
I'd be happy to share my research if anyone is interested in it.
Jane Milford
*Becoming a good violinist is 6% skill and 94% not getting distracted by the internet.
--- On Mon, 1/23/12, sca-dance-request at sca-dance.org <sca-dance-request at sca-dance.org> wrote:
From: sca-dance-request at sca-dance.org <sca-dance-request at sca-dance.org>
Subject: Sca-dance Digest, Vol 75, Issue 10
To: sca-dance at sca-dance.org
Date: Monday, January 23, 2012, 12:00 PM
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: Documenting Argeers for an A&S competition (Tim McDaniel)
2. Re: Documenting Argeers for an A&S competition (Dani Zweig)
3. Re: Documenting Argeers for an A&S competition (Dani Zweig)
4. Re: Documenting Argeers for an A&S competition (Tim McDaniel)
5. English dance before Playford? (Tim McDaniel)
6. Re: English dance before Playford? (Aaron Macks)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:05:48 -0600 (CST)
From: Tim McDaniel <tmcd at panix.com>
Subject: Re: [SCA-Dance] Documenting Argeers for an A&S competition
Cc: SCA Dance <sca-dance at sca-dance.org>
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.1201230954410.28590 at panix2.panix.com>
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On Mon, 23 Jan 2012, Dani Zweig <dani at pobox.com> wrote:
> There are standard hand-waving arguments, but the real answer is
> "Early Playford is an SCA tradition. If the judges want to take off
> a point or two because this dance is not documentably pre-1650 or
> pre-1600 or whatever, we'll try to make it back by having a good
> entry".
Indeed, I just want the standard things that are said. I figured that
surely I cannot be the first person writing up docco that involves
English Country Dance. So if the Crustimony Proseedcake is to just
say "Post-period, SCA trad, I feel so dirty, sorry", or whatever, OK.
Daniel Delinquent
--
Tim McDaniel, tmcd at panix.com
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:06:40 -0500
From: Dani Zweig <dani at pobox.com>
Subject: Re: [SCA-Dance] Documenting Argeers for an A&S competition
To: SCA Dance <sca-dance at sca-dance.org>
Message-ID:
<CAPb7wZ8H_2tC=GNZ5xNxtw5nZ6RGUVLBbtY_qbufRjk2oXVe8w at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
I agree that there's no way to tell from the complexity. (The notion that
things get more complex and more sophisticated over time is a
nineteenth-century intellectual inheritance.) The people who danced the
new country dances in Queen Elizabeth's court would have known contemporary
Italian and Spanish dances, so the bar on how high complexity could have
been early on is very high.
- Dani
On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 10:13 AM, White, John <white at drexel.edu> wrote:
> >From: Dani Zweig [dani at pobox.com]
>
> >> However, there isn't really any way to tell from that complexity just
> how
> >>long
> >> people had been doing ECD, nor when it was a fresh, new style.
> >
> >We know quite a bit about that. People were certainly doing what they
> >called country dances in the sixteenth century. But I would advise
> against
> >going down this road with documentation. This is the "people ate chicken
> >in period" approach to document Kentucky Fried Chicken.
> >
> >The challenge in this case is to document Argeers to period, not to
> >document ECD to period.
> >
> >- Dani
>
> Without being pedantic, my statement wasn't whether or not ECD is period,
> nor
> whether there was country dance pre-1600. The statement was that we cannot
> judge from the *complexity* present in 1650 how long people had been doing
> the
> style of dance called 'country dance' *in* 1650, nor when it was a new
> style.
>
> We have popular song/dance titles that are similar or the same in the 16th
> and 17th
> centuries. We have song tunes used in the mid-17th century that were
> created
> in the late 16th. For example, Lightly Love/Light o' Love is from the
> late 1590s
> (in Shakespeare) and the dance tune Light o' Love is from even earlier:
> these match a dance choreography written down in or before 1649 (in
> Lovelace) - none of that makes the two the same dance; neither can it be
> proven
> that they are not (though some analyzing of the context of Shakespeare's
> usage might preclude the kidnapping-style Lovelace country dance being what
> the Bard was referring to).
>
> It is, all in all, a tough nut to crack.
>
> \\Dafydd Cyhoeddwr
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------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:12:57 -0500
From: Dani Zweig <dani at pobox.com>
Subject: Re: [SCA-Dance] Documenting Argeers for an A&S competition
To: SCA Dance <sca-dance at sca-dance.org>
Message-ID:
<CAPb7wZ9B6X6FuxZkVo++fBiK2tij-0xo+ZMXy_+ehRe4m9GUyg at mail.gmail.com>
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Yes, but give it a positive spin: Not "post-period", just "not
documentable before Playford - and SCA tradition is to give early Playford
the benefit of the doubt".
On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 11:05 AM, Tim McDaniel <tmcd at panix.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 23 Jan 2012, Dani Zweig <dani at pobox.com> wrote:
> > There are standard hand-waving arguments, but the real answer is
> > "Early Playford is an SCA tradition. If the judges want to take off
> > a point or two because this dance is not documentably pre-1650 or
> > pre-1600 or whatever, we'll try to make it back by having a good
> > entry".
>
> Indeed, I just want the standard things that are said. I figured that
> surely I cannot be the first person writing up docco that involves
> English Country Dance. So if the Crustimony Proseedcake is to just
> say "Post-period, SCA trad, I feel so dirty, sorry", or whatever, OK.
>
> Daniel Delinquent
> --
> Tim McDaniel, tmcd at panix.com
> ________________________________________________________________
> To send mail to the entire list, be sure sca-dance at sca-dance.org is listed
> in the To line of any response.
>
> To Unsubscribe send mail to: sca-dance-request at sca-dance.org
> ________________________________________________________________
>
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:31:57 -0600 (CST)
From: Tim McDaniel <tmcd at panix.com>
Subject: Re: [SCA-Dance] Documenting Argeers for an A&S competition
Cc: SCA Dance <sca-dance at sca-dance.org>
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.1201231026210.23209 at panix3.panix.com>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
On Mon, 23 Jan 2012, Dani Zweig <dani at pobox.com> wrote:
> Yes, but give it a positive spin: Not "post-period", just "not
> documentable before Playford - and SCA tradition is to give early
> Playford the benefit of the doubt".
Should I bother with other factors, like
- easy to get sources in English
- a vibrant non-SCA community so people can pick it up there
?
And maybe: not much usable info on English dance before Playford?
I'll put that into a separate thread.
Danyll de Linccolne
--
Tim McDaniel, tmcd at panix.com
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:43:03 -0600 (CST)
From: Tim McDaniel <tmcd at panix.com>
Subject: [SCA-Dance] English dance before Playford?
To: SCA Dance <sca-dance at sca-dance.org>
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.1201231031590.23209 at panix3.panix.com>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
I want to find out if I understand correctly what we know of English
dance before Playford. Would someone please check my understanding?
There are references to dances being done: an ambassador saw Queen
Elizabeth dancing the Spanish Panic, and I read a reference to a
payment to the three people dancing Trenchmore before the Queen, and
doubless many others.
Italian dances made it to England. The Gresley intro (q.v.) mentions
"A collection of Basse Danses in the Salisbury manuscript date from
the 1400s, and was published by Robert Copelaunde in the 1500s. While
the Basse Dances are considered French, it is believed they had been
performed in England ..." How about bransles?
The Pattricke|Lovelace Manuscript. It's not clear about the date, but
it's apparently not from before 1649, two years before Playford.
The Old Measures|Inns of Court dances are in multiple manuscripts and
I think are pretty clear, but that's 8 dances.
Gresley is circa 1500, and has "choreography for 26 dances and the
music for 13, with an overlap of 8 dances having both music and
choreography" <http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/lod/vol5/gresley.html>.
But it's just one man's memory aid: it doesn't explain the steps, and
only some can have inferences drawn from steps with similar names in
other dances.
Danihel Lindicolinum
--
Tim McDaniel, tmcd at panix.com
------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:57:52 -0500
From: Aaron Macks <upelluri at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [SCA-Dance] English dance before Playford?
To: Tim McDaniel <tmcd at panix.com>
Cc: SCA Dance <sca-dance at sca-dance.org>
Message-ID: <4F1D9190.5040005 at gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
I don't have the book handy, but in Cunningham's _Dancing in the Inns
of Court_, it talks about the "Old Measures" (what we think of) and
then, once those were complete, the "New Measures", including country
dances and Gaillardes (at least). I'll double check the scans when I
get home
GunDormr
On 1/23/12 11:43 AM, Tim McDaniel wrote:
> I want to find out if I understand correctly what we know of English
> dance before Playford. Would someone please check my understanding?
>
> There are references to dances being done: an ambassador saw Queen
> Elizabeth dancing the Spanish Panic, and I read a reference to a
> payment to the three people dancing Trenchmore before the Queen, and
> doubless many others.
>
> Italian dances made it to England. The Gresley intro (q.v.) mentions
> "A collection of Basse Danses in the Salisbury manuscript date from
> the 1400s, and was published by Robert Copelaunde in the 1500s. While
> the Basse Dances are considered French, it is believed they had been
> performed in England ..." How about bransles?
>
> The Pattricke|Lovelace Manuscript. It's not clear about the date, but
> it's apparently not from before 1649, two years before Playford.
>
> The Old Measures|Inns of Court dances are in multiple manuscripts and
> I think are pretty clear, but that's 8 dances.
>
> Gresley is circa 1500, and has "choreography for 26 dances and the
> music for 13, with an overlap of 8 dances having both music and
> choreography" <http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/lod/vol5/gresley.html>.
> But it's just one man's memory aid: it doesn't explain the steps, and
> only some can have inferences drawn from steps with similar names in
> other dances.
>
> Danihel Lindicolinum
--
_______________________________________________________
Aaron Macks(aaronm at wiglaf.org) [http://www.wiglaf.org/~aaronm ]
My sheep has seven gall bladders, that makes me the King of the Universe!
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