pennsicdance: organizer round-up

[Greg Lindahl]

Greetings from that idyllic pleasure spot known as an airport hotel
next to New York's Kennedy airport!

Here's your promised Pennsic round-up.

First off, I'd like to share the most important news: Don Lyev would
like to organize dance next year. I know a bunch of you were
recruiting him, and I'm very glad he's interested.

We have not one but two volunteers for floor organization: Domenico
will if his new job allows it, and Margaret will if he can't. All that
should be settled in January.

Elsbeth would like to repeat as the music pile organizer, with more
time now that her pesky graduate degree is out of the way.

Lyev probably has some other ideas for Things To Do. So if you'd like
to volunteer, send him your ideas, or ask him for some Things To Do.

First, the good:

1) The larger dance tent rocks, and Adele was able to get $$ to expand
the floor. Next year is our last year with Alaric as Pennsic
Treasurer, so we should get any final major expenses out of the way
next year.

2) Wolgemut rocks. The total crowd was about as big as the Masked Ball
usually is, and I have never before seen groups of non-dancers dash
onto the dance floor to boogie to the... Double Bransle. We should
definitely invite them to come back on some non-special evening next
year.  I'll put Lyev in touch with them. Maybe we could suggest some
new pieces for them to learn.

3) The music pile was good, despite a few teething pains, and the
overall number of musicians seemed to be up. I think that having a
musician encourager (Octavio) was a good personal touch to get new
musicians playing for dancing -- then once they've made friends with
the rest of the band, they're hooked for life.

4) The two Caroso balls had about the minimum number of people needed
to work -- and I really enjoyed both of them. See below for talk about
times.

5) The English Revel worked pretty well, and was well attended. For
next year, anyone who'd like some details about the types of
dances found at the Revels is welcome to contact me -- it wasn't
just measures and country dances.

The not-so-good:

1) The one time I looked, signs in the Barn on evenings when dance was
only in the dance tent were non-existent. Something as loud as a big
piece of poster-board on a 3-legged stand in the center of the floor
would be good.

2) Putting the Ball on Friday turned out to be not-so-good -- about
100 dancers and 100 watchers, as opposed to the usual 200+200 crowd.
Not only were we against the fireworks (surprise!), but some people
were already packing up midday Friday. The Ball date is always
dictated by court, of course, but I think that Monday is a better day
than Friday.

3) Caroso balls during the day seem to draw more dancers than in the
evening. Both of the balls this year got enough people to be OK, but
in the future, I'd recommend putting at least one during the day.

4) The 15c Italian dance party drew a modest crowd, and I don't think
it worked very well.

5) The class book. Well, that's enough on that topic.

As usual, I'd like photographs of dancing at Pennsic for the
historical webpages.

-- Gregory