pennsicdance: Dance Music at Pennsic

[Jane & Mark Waks]

Octavio de Flores wrote:
> 5.  How does Black Nag (1673) escape the Pennsic OOP restriction?  If you
> argue that it is "similar to" Playford 1, it opens up a pandora's box of
> opinions about why my favorite dance is "like" Playford 1.

Yeah, but that's nonetheless how a lot of us operate: by style, not 
year. For example, Carolingia *mostly* (not religiously, but as a rule 
of thumb) focuses on the set-dance forms from Playford, and avoids the 
longways dances. That's because the set dances have an apparently 
straightforward line of descent from the dances being done in 1600, so 
they occupy a fairly grey area as far as SCA period is concerned. By 
contrast, there are relatively few longways-style progressive dances 
documentable prior to 1651, and it then becomes the defining style of 
the Baroque. So we essentially draw a line right down the middle of 
Playford, separating the style that was going out from the one that was 
coming in. And by that stylistic line, Black Nag is in the "early" (late 
Renaissance) choreographic style, rather than the "late" (Baroque) one.

Not everyone agrees with that mode of operation, and I said, even here 
we're not entirely consistent about it. And it's certainly subjective, 
as are many of the dances we're talking about. But it's a fairly common 
rule of thumb, which is why Black Nag doesn't get discouraged as often 
as HitW does...

				-- Justin