[SCA-Dance] "Drive the Cold Winter Away"

Tim McDaniel tmcd at panix.com
Mon Feb 16 02:02:27 EST 2015


> "First man backe a D. then goe downe between the rest and turne the
> last Wo but one then the last, and stay there while the other men go
> between the 2. and the third We. and goe toward the left hand and fall
> downe to the first man _._"

On Mon, 16 Feb 2015, Garden, John (DPS) <John.Garden at aph.gov.au> wrote:
> A few curiosities in Playford's dance instructions led me to
> reconstruct the dance as once intended as not being  'for as many as
> will' as the Playford's text states, but as for 3 couples.

I did a bit of looking at Lovelace and MS Sloane 3858.  As I recall,
for the few dances I looked at, Playford was "for 3 couples" when
Lovelace could be "for 3 or 4 couples" or "for 4 or more couples" or
whatever.  "Drive the Cold Winter Away" might be one of the rarer
places where Playford allows the flexibility of Lovelace?

I'm going to have to work with paper or coins to try to figure out
your suggestion fully.  I think the major sticking point in any
reconstruction is to figure out whether any particular "turn" means a
full turn or a half turn <=> which hand is being turned by <=> which
people someone is walking between.

A thought just hit me: first man might be backing a D. from *man 2*.
(Hey, it's the only direction I hadn't considered so far.  Except for
man 1 backing into woman 1.)  In the Banys/Gresley dances, Armyn has A
hanging back from B and C with effect that, when they start the final
hey, A can start the hey at the same moment as B and C.  But that
wouldn't have the same effect here, unless the other men were to
follow the leader through this point a double forward/back of the line
-- this would give man 1 4 extra beats to do ... something?
So I think this thought that just hit me may need to be thrown back.

Danet de Linccolne
-- 
Tim McDaniel, tmcd at panix.com


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