pennsicdance: ball suggestions

[Catherine E. Dean]

>> OK.. Ballo del Fiore is a nice dance.. I like the music, I like to dance 
it,
>
>> dancer...  I'm not saying get rid of it.. on the contrary, I strongly
>> recommend we keep it, but we should also teach it in classes and use 
it as a
>
>It was taught at least once by me, and Judith probably taught it in her
>ball-prep classes.  Part of the problem may have been that we only had 
the
>seven (just got up and counted 'em!) flowers that I brought.  That limits
>the dance to seven couples at a time.
>

Actually, it was taught at least three times during war (all three intro 16th 
c. 
Italian classes) and I assume by Judith as well.  I *know* the "italian 
clique" of dancers, and there were new folks out dancing BdF (and the 
other intro 16th c. italians--particularly contentezza d'amore) on the floor 
during the ball and it was *great*.  So if there are people who are still 
grumbling about not knowing the dances, I don't have a heck of a lot of 
sympathy for them.  There were plenty of opportunities to learn the dance 
and we weren't excluding anyone from any of them or from being out on 
the floor dancing.

By the way, in order to help solve the flower problem in BdF--I now have 
about 3 dozen flower picks which I will plan on bringing with me next year 
for the ball or evening dance or for anyone else who wants to use 'em.

On the greater issue, I agree that we need balance, but I personally think 
that the balance is good right now.  Perhaps we could consider shifting 
things around so that there is more alternation between dances enjoyed 
by different groups (perhaps making sure that there are no more than two 
Italians (of any genre) or two ECDs and branles (because I know some 
people dislike both), etc. in a row ).  I haven't scrutinized the ball list, 
but 
it's just a thought.  I also agree that it might be nice to have one basse 
dance in there.  I realize that they're not the most wildly popular style, but 
for the sake of variety it would be interesting, and we don't do enough 
burgundian basse dance at Pennsic.


Katherine

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Catherine E. Dean
SCA: Katherine Mercer, Editor _The Letter of Dance_
cdean at gwu.edu      
Jane Austen Aficionado, Renaissance Dancer, and Future Museum Professional Extraordinaire
No one who had met Catherine would have supposed her to have been born a heroine --JA
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