Shall we dance?

[nightengalesknd]

Apparently I'm in a crowdsourcing mood this week:

Can anyone tell me how to phrase 1.5 English Pousette in waltz time in 8 bars? (1.5 in that it is progressive, unlike a full English Pousette which I am given to understand is non-progressive, unlike a Scottish Quicktime Pousette which is progressive. . . ) If it makes a difference, the dance is being done in a circle and the Pousette ends facing the next couple around the circle.

I kept arriving 1.5-2 bars too early and killed time. No one at English could phrase it beyond "you have 8 bars." That was the more helpful advice. The less helpful advice was to not worry about it and have fun. I tend to have fun if I have some idea where I'm going. Otherwise I freeze or trip over my feet. I find that rather less fun.

This is the year I've decided to make some headway in English dance. Last year I attended a few English dances and an introductory English class. This is following years and years of people telling me I could just figure it out because it was like Scottish only walking. Rather than this getting me to walk in the right direction, it generally gets me to freeze in place trying to figure out where everyone else is walking. So after a few failed English-Scottish balls, I put my foot down and said I'd wait until I could actually learn it. There is a local English dance which meets monthly and I've made it most months since moving here. I've finally had someone tell me how to set. I've gotten comfortable with several specific longways dances. I've reached the conclusion that circle dances and mixers may be forever beyond me. (I'd reached that conclusion about Gay Gorden's years ago.)

About a quarter of English dance figures seem pretty much the same as Scottish. Rights and Lefts, for example. About a quarter are about the same but are called something different. I need a translator for my brain, not my feet or body. Hay means reel, so a double crossover mirrorwise hay is no big deal. There are some unique things to English, like a gypsy and siding. But my real bug-a-bear are the things which have the same name but mean something a little different. Or a lot different.

It reminds me of what my French teacher used to call "false friends" (faux amis) Those are words in a language you are learning which sound or look like words in your own language, so you think you know what they mean. And then you discover they don't mean anything like the same thing. For example, the Spanish word "embarazar" has nothing to do with being embarrassed and everything to do with being pregnant. I should say, it has nothing to do with being embarrassed until the English speaker discovers what it really means mid-conversation. Then everyone becomes embarrassed. These dance terms are also proving to be false friends. They say Pousette and it sounds oh so familiar and comforting. Then I see what is going on, and I realize they and I don't mean the same thing with the same word. I've now learned Ladies Chain in Scottish, Square and English. If there's another version, I don't want to hear it!

On the less confused and frustrated side, this is the first chance I've had to do Scottish regulalry since 1998. The class here was described last week as a bit One Room School House, which is different from my core experience dancing on a college campus where the dance semester had a predictable pattern. We have new dancers almost every week. We have demonstration team level dancers every week. We have people in the middle every week. It's really perfect for me, where I am right now, which is needing a place to dance and build stamina and push my own technique so that I can be ready for a true experienced class in a few years. I'm pretty good at drilling my own technique. They do throw in a weekly dance for the experience folk. After a 1995 disaster, I've finally learned The Knot!

One of the few good things about moving every few years (and I'm hard put to find good things in this) is getting to learn new local favorites. I "grew up" with Ian Powrie and De'il Among the Tailors and John McAlpin. The class here is fond of Catch the Wind and this 5 couple set farce called Balgeddie. As we tend to number 5 couples, we do Balgeddie a lot. If we don't have new folks, it's essentially a house dance. It's fun and lively and I almost think I know where I'm going, but if I was to predict that a cautious dancing 10-year old would only know one dance without a briefing, Balgeddie would not be my guess. Yet there it is. I've also become enamored with a dance called Cranberry Tart. Only I would leave Cape Cod for the South and THEN learn a cranberry dance. If you're a Scottish dancer and haven't yet encountered it, I heartily recommend changing that situation. It has TWO reels of three and yet I still like it, which should tell you something. It starts with a meanwhile figure with the woman following her partner by two bars, a bit like a quicktime John McAlpin meanwhile and then ends with the reels.

Tonight I learned the Purple Heather Jig. So now I know two dances based on the White Heather Jig - the Black Leather and the Purple Heather. The Purple Heather is done to the same music as the White Heather, and Purple:White as Rigs of Corn:Corn Rigs. The first and fourth couple turn and cast in, everyone reels, corner partner is done with all 4 couples at once, everyone reels some more and then they cast back out. Apparently the March dance weekend in Atlanta will brief White Heather, start the music and each set to its own which will be danced. Chaos may ensue.

I know chaos often ensues dancing. The experienced bunch got so mixed up tonight that we had a reel of 5 and a reel of 3 and someone asked me mid-circle "who are you?" Someone cast instead of setting and someone forgot to reel and someone forgot who was a Man even though we have unequivocal "MAN" tags worn about the neck. Someone turned their partner's corner. The teacher omitted two bars in the briefing. I screwed up. The whole set screwed up. We had to stop the music and rearrange folks. We learned. We laughed. We had fun. I hope the new folks come back.

I just have more fun when I know what it is I'm aiming to do.

Comments

[aries11.livejournal.com]

I can't really offer any input, as I've never really taken any dance classes. All I can say is that I know how frustrating it is to get conflicting lessons. All I can say is good luck and I hope you get the hang of it!

[kittenmommy.livejournal.com]

I can't dance for anything. Yay, CP! Soooo uncoordinated and ungraceful; I trip over my own two feet, or even nothing at all!

[nightengalesknd.livejournal.com]

Yeah CP doesn't help and of course I danced for a decade before my diagnosis. For years, every time I took hands with another dancer, my free hand would flap around. It happens to a lot of begining dancers, but most are able to nip it in the bud a lot sooner than I was. Now I know the neurologists would call that "overflow." Then holding on tightly would set off tremors. At least I already walked on my toes, so dancing on the balls of my feet came naturally!

Once I realized I could do a lot more if it were decribed in words instead of shown to me, dance got a lot better. Now it's just a coin toss if I can find someone who is able to describe figures in words!

[kittenmommy.livejournal.com]

I danced my entire life before I knew about my diagnosis in 2010, LOL. I never knew before why I was so awful and graceless, though. I thought I was just unbelievably inept!

Glad you're able to master dancing! I bet it's incredibly fun to do it right! :D

[morgan-starfire.livejournal.com]

Don't ever "hold tightly" (not with your hands, anyway) when dancing. You want firm *arms*, not tight hands. Hope that helps...

[nightengalesknd.livejournal.com]

It was "firm arms" that did me in for. . . oh, the first 18 months or so I was dancing? Mostly I remember it being an issue my sophmore year when I'd been put into the experienced class without realizing I didn't have to be there. I'd follow directions and arrange my arms in the W in a circle or setting in a line or whatever and be admonished to give weight so I'd try to stiffen them. I didn't have the strength to pull in without also stiffening by recruiting extra muscles. Then I'd start shaking from the effort. I have the same reaction if I try to handwrite more than a few sentences. Of course, the stress of being told to stop shaking didn't exactly help, nor was the assumption that the problem was anxiety.

Eventually I managed to escape the experienced class so I could learn at my own pace, did a year of ballet barre exercises, bicycled and built up enough strength that I could learn to give weight without rendering my arms useless for the next half hour.

[morgan-starfire.livejournal.com]

I am pretty sure I know exactly who that was. *headdesk*

I've done several stints of PT over the last six years that have helped me (finally) understand the role of my core muscles in all this. (That PT returned me to walking without (or with relatively little) pain, and allowed me to dance again. *deep gratitude*)

I'm glad you listened to yourself, and glad you were able to be in a class with a teacher better suited to how you learn.

[tirerim.livejournal.com]

It being a 1.5 poussette in waltz time, I assume that you are actually waltzing, yes? At least, that is the usual way that goes. What's the dance? At most waltz tempos, there isn't a heck of a lot of time to get 1.5 times around -- is it very slow? If so, I'd suggest just making a bigger circle around the other couple, and if you're really getting there two bars early, you and your partner can just turn an extra time approximately in place. There really isn't any phrasing within the 8 bars -- ECD tends to break things down like that much less than SCD does.

Cranberry Tart is a great dance. I first learned it perhaps my sophomore year at Swarthmore -- it might have been on a ball program. These days I try to put it on programs myself every once in a while... which, come to think of it, I need more dances for one that I'm working on now.

[nightengalesknd.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what you mean by "actually waltzing." The music was in 3/4 and the feet were going 1-2-3 on every bar rather than 1-2-3-4, just as in longways English dances in waltz time. But we weren't in ballroom hold. We were in pretty much the same hold as a Scottish pousette.

I either don't remember or wasn't told the name of the dance. I've been trying to remember as many as possible so I can go home and google them.

I know English doesn't phrase things out the way Scottish does, but I have to do it for myself (or in this case try to get help doing it) because I need to plan where I'm putting my body in space. This is why I've had so much trouble with English for so long and stoped going to English-Scottish until I had some formal classes. If I had 8 bars to do a single English Pousette I'd probably use one bar to go backwards, two to pass the other couple sideways, one to go forward to the line of the dance, one to go forwards, two to pass and one to return to the line of the dance. Figuring it out like that helps me figure out how big a step I should take and in what direction. I still count pretty much every bar of music when I dance, English or Scottish and try to plan where my body should be for each one.

Usually I can figure it out. The last English dance I had a huge phrasing problem turned out to be in 9/8 time. Once I realized that, I was able to get the figures to fit the amount of music alotted without being too early or running out of time. I don't have the whatever to improvise to make up extra time doing extra things. I just can't figure out how to get 1.5 English Pousettes into 8 bars. After the dance, I considered 3-3-2 like a rondel, one bar out, one to pass, one to midline, one out, one to pass, one to midline (or a touch past) one out and partway passing, and then one finishing the pass and back to midline. I didn't have a chance to try it out, though. What I guess I need to do it watch people who know what they are doing and then see how they phrase it, which I can do, but it takes watching a whole bunch of times compared to if someone could just tell me once!

[meanfreepath.livejournal.com]

I can't help with the poussette question, alas. I generally find the timing of figures in English to be clearer once the music is played, although it can be frustrating to not have the timing precision of Scottish both as a dancer and above all as a musician.

One resource which I literally just found whilst preparing for a dance I'm playing next week is a website put together by the Cambridge University ECD club:

http://round.soc.srcf.net/

which has instructions for a lot of dances and a description of dance terminology. They've published a book of instructions of standard dances, which I am now thinking I will buy, as I dislike playing a dance tune with absolutely no idea of how the dance it's supposed to support goes.

[nightengalesknd.livejournal.com]

Good resource. According to it, I've been doing 1.0 English Pousettes all wrong this whole time, squaring them off rather than going diagnal like a back-to-back. It doesn't address the 1.5, more's the pity.

I don't find the music tells me what to do, but it does a great job of telling me what not to do (i.e. "you're early for the next figure!!")

[morgan-starfire.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm, half poussettes in ECD are progressive; if you're improper, a draw poussette would get you proper again.

I would suggest emailing Scott Higgs. I can drop you his email/do email introductions if you'd like.

(Full poussette in strathspey time in SCD is not progressive.)

Hah. When it comes to faux amis, you could also be doing contra... ;-)

There's a very popular SCD here in Edinburgh called Domino Five, which is a *five-person* dance. Ah, yes, it's on-line! http://www.scottish-country-dancing-dictionary.com/dance-crib/domino-five.html We manage to get beginning dancers through this, but it has fine points that are lots of fun for experienced dancers.

Keep having fun! I'm so happy to hear you're dancing again.

[nightengalesknd.livejournal.com]

Contra is not going to happen. I tried it once at a combined contra/American square. The centrifugal force of the swings pretty much did me in. I ended up with one foot planted and the other one pawing desperately at the floor as person after person just turned and turned and turned. Which is a pity because everthing else seemed within my grasp. If I could find a steady group of dancers who would agree to just turn me around once for the swings. . .

This English Pousette thing was definitely progressive because we were couple-facing-couple around a circle and it was how we got to be facing the subsequent couple. It seemed to be 1.5 of what I had previously understood to be an English Pousette. The overall path made sense. I just couldn't figure out how to phrase the component parts which boiled down to 3 passes in 8 bars. I haven't yet met a draw pousette but evidently I'll have to put it in my pousette collection.

E-mail intros would be great! English dance is just so much harder for my brain, because I can't figure out what I'm supposed to be doing

[morgan-starfire.livejournal.com]

No, no! That was sarcasm, I promise! (About contra.)

(Though, in all seriousness -- in a good contra community (note qualifier), one should *never* have to put up with inappropriate swinging (er, quotes taken out of context). People should follow your lead, your non-verbal cues, in terms of what kind of swinging works for you/you like. There are plenty of people who contra dance who can't handle vigorous swings, or just plain don't like them, and who nonetheless have plenty of fun on a contra dance floor. Key is, they usually dance in communities where the dancing level is high enough that they don't have to put up with people not being able to read their cues, or people who think the only good way to swing is to dislocate someone's neck. If I sound opinionated about this, it's b/c I am: I've had the privilege of dancing in two really amazing contra communities, Ann Arbor and Seattle, and have refused to dance in some far less sterling ones, even when I could walk to dances. I used to drive an hour to English in Philly on Wednesdays instead of walk to the contra in my neighborhood, both b/c of the lack of dance hospitality and also b/c, well, the guys were too often borderline slimy.)

What dance is this, by the way??

So it was a poussette and a half? Yes, that would be progressive. And dizzying!

Scott could help sort you out. So could Joanna Reiner, come to think of it, and you know her, right?

Drop me an email -- smorganappel at hotmail dot com.

English really does make sense eventually. I promise!

I did eventually have to let go of things fitting in quite the same way as SCD, but it did come to make sense. Barring, even. Whether or not the dance leaders/callers care about barring at all has depended a lot on where I've danced, and on individual callers. In Ann Arbor, for example, we had a lot of callers -- in part b/c we were always bringing new ones along (like me) -- and there was a lot of variation in terms of who actually really *knew* where people were supposed to be at the end of bar whatever, rather than at the beginning of, say, section B1. But there are some callers who *always* know that. So, it depends.

Does having written dance instructions help you? Or just make it more of a muddle?