pennsicdance: Pennsic classes

[L.J. Sparvero]

Hi all,
	I'm going to have the first draft of the Pennsic Dance class and ball 
schedule online by early next week at http://www.PennsicEuropeanDance.org 
What I can tell everyone right now is that there will be quite a few open 
slots in the general teaching times (10am-3pm), especially on the first 
Thursday and Friday. If you're still ambivalent about teaching, please 
consider it over the weekend. I strongly encourage every dance instructor 
who makes it to Pennsic to teach something.
	If you're stuck on ideas of what to teach, my suggestions are "Something 
old, something new; something easy, something hard":

Something old: There are bunches of "old favorites" that don't get taught 
at Pennsic, since all the instructors (me included) assume "this one is so 
popular that surely someone will teach it". And no one does ;-) I'm not 
sure if Rostiboli (the most often requested dance) was ever taught last 
year. The Ball prep classes cover some, but not all of the standard repertoire.

Something new: Without new dances to learn, the evening dance repertoire 
will grow stale. There are plenty of dances in the period sources that I 
just never see taught at Pennsic. Many people go to Pennsic to learn new 
things, and to take them back to their home groups. Also how many different 
reconstructions are there of the standard repertoire dances? As a side 
note, some dances that require eight people tend to only get taught at big 
events like Pennsic, where there's a very good chance of having enough dancers.

Something easy: I'm greatly indebted to Greg for the class system he's set 
up. Newer dancers can show up at a certain time, and know that there will 
be a class at their level taught. Even though there are set times for 
beginner and focused beginner classes (this year they seem to be well 
covered -- thank you!), there's no reason why you can't teach something at 
a beginner level in the regular-class time slots.

Something hard: People also come to Pennsic to be occasionally challenged. 
Two years ago dance style (instead of reconstructions) was the rage. Want 
to run a class were we practice for an hour on how to do Caroso's steps 
gracefully? I know I'd take it. Difficult dances like Tesara tend to get 
taught annually (dibs on the white scarf! ;-).

Dance well, -Lyev

P.S. I will be at Ice Dragon and Terpsichore, and be able to take class 
requests on the spot.