[SCA-Dance] Sca-dance Digest, Vol 112, Issue 7

[Barbara Webb]

My previous reply to this doesn't seem to have appeared, so posting again:

> From: Justin du coeur <jducoeur at gmail.com>
>
> On Sun, Apr 26, 2015 at 7:35 PM, Rachel/Judith <judithsca at aol.com> wrote:
>
>>     However, regarding the undercut -  I have spent years poring over
>> primary-source information on the piva and have yet to see any evidence of
>> the undercut there - where is it hinted at specifically? I would certainly
>> be interested in anything that precise.
>
> +1.  We had done away with the cut-under locally about 20-25 years ago,
> because we couldn't find any textual justification for it; I'm curious what
> the source of its recent resurgence is...

I think one reason the undercut (or some form of 'step-together-step') for 
piva tends to recur is that people make their steps too large. Doing three 
passing steps at piva tempo is quite difficult if you are not used to it. 
I find emphasising that the individual steps should be quite small (at 
least when starting out) helps a lot to counteract this tendency. There is 
probably also, to some extent, a carry over from other forms of dance 
where 6/8 rhythm will often go along with a cut-step - and if some members 
of the group are confidently (if mis-guidedly) doing this, others will 
copy them, and pick up a habit that is very hard to break.

Caitlin

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