pennsicdance: ball suggestions

[Annikki Weston]

On Wed, 18 Sep 2002, Matthew Underhill wrote:

> postings on here.  I have a few thoughts to share, from the point of view of
> someone who's very interested in dancing, though not nearly as familiar with
> it as most, if not all, of you.

Hi!  And yay for you for sharing! :)

> there's not a real noticeable difference between 15th and 16th century.  I

You know, I _just_ came up with this one -- lots of the 15c ones are the
freeforms you mention later on, while the 16c ones have the repeating
verse/chorus structure like ECDs.

> will admit that there's undoubtably people on the other side of the fence
> saying "Not another ECD!"

Oh, you bet.

> In my area, ECD is definitely the most prominent and most popular.  It

That seems to be the case for most groups everywhere.  Probably one of the
reasons why the Italian nuts, once we get together, beg for Italian, and
the ECD nuts, knowing ECD best, think there's too much.

> course, I'm still at the stage of saying, "Pavine, I know I've danced that
> one before, but what was it?"

Don't worry if you still say that sort of thing ten years from now --
there's tons of dances that I know I've done, but can't remember which one
it was until the music starts and my feet go.

> At the ball, especially, but also at many of the dance parties and at the
> barn and such, it does seem like (to the novice) that you'll have one dance
> that you'll know, followed by 3 that you don't.  And people don't want to
> take the time, especially at night, to teach.

There seemed to be a lot of reviewing at night during the regular dancing.
Or were you refering to just the balls/parties?  There actually is an
honest attempted during the balls/parties, where there isn't teaching, to
alternate between easy and harder dances.

> in our area and assuming farther.  :-)  ECD has repeated styles of verses
> and you just need to learn the choruses, many of which share a lot of basic
> movements.  Italian, at least from my perspective, is very open, very
> dynamic, and the only thing I can tell that repeats is the style of
> steps....

ECD has also been done a lot longer than Italian in a lot of places, which
adds to the feeling that it's easier.  It's familiar.  Some of the Italian
does have the repeating chorus structure (and a lot of ECD has chaing
choruses, too).  Some of the more open Italian can be very much faked and
still look good -- it's just a matter of knowing when to go away from your
partner, when to go back, and mega-attitude. ;)

> ... but I think I can speak for many newbies in saying that I feel *very*
> intimidated (especially in Italian) trying to dance with the "masters" at
> the ball (etc.) after having only 45 minutes of class yesterday... so I
> choose to sit out.  Especially watching how graceful and gorgeous many of
> you are on the dance floor... I feel like the 6'4" 215 lb. lumbering fool
> that I am.  :-P

No, noooooooo.... :) Come up to one of us ladies who seem to know what
we're doing and ask, PLEASE!!!???  _Especially_ in Italian!  I know that
it is very correct for a lady to ask a lord to dance, but quite frankly, I am very shy and unlikely
to go up to someone I don't know, who may not want to dance even, and ask
him.

If you only vaguely remember it from class, let her know.  I know that I
would be thrilled to help someone in practicing the dance!  The only way
you learn these things is to practice them! :)

> I, for one, would be excited to see two separate balls for primarily the ECD
> and Italian styles and a third one evenly mixed.

I feel that this is basically what we already do.  We have the English
Revel, the Italian party, and the big Pennsic Ball.

> It's just very frustrating to an individual who's not as well versed in
> dance to attend the dancing events at Pennsic since we can't make it to
> every dane class, even if we wanted to.  Personally, I try my best to evenly

Could you try to focus on the beginning classes in the afternoons?  Those
are geared towards lots of basics and lots of repetition.  They're made
for gaining a basic repetoire of stuff so that you can dance in the
evenigns.

> distribute my days between my other SCAdian interests, such as games,
> archery, cooking, and dabbling in some A&S, water bearing, and chiurgeon

Busy, busy! :)

> And of course there's the fun of cheering your warriors to victory in the
> large battles!  ;-)  Come on now, all of you have to admit that the field
> battle is an impressive sight!

There were battles going on? ;)

> little cousin-in-law-to-be Robyn thanks you (she's the cute little blonde

Oh, she is a cutie!

Adele Desfontaines