pennsicdance: Musicians and Venues and GOOP, Oh My!

[Alex Clark]

At 06:04 PM 9/1/2005 -0500, Steven Bush wrote:
>Greetings from Etienne. . . .
>My suggestion is that we institute a rule that no GOOP may be taught 
>(including quick run-throughs) in the Barn or Tent. . . .

Sounds good to me. That means that nobody is allowed to teach a "clap, 
clap, don't clap" version of Gathering Peascods in a very large circle, 
right? And no mixer branles except the branle du Chandelier ou de la Torche.

But seriously, before we make or perpetuate any kind of rules against GOOP 
dances, maybe we ought to stop and think whether we have a good dividing 
line between GOOP and SOOP or SPRAY (Strictly Period, Reconstructed 
Accurately, Yay!). Can we really tell which is which?

Also, I doubt that making precise rules is necessarily an effective way to 
promote more period activity. On the contrary, any unfortunate combination 
of precision and strictness of the rules could result in more people 
digging in their heels all around, leading to a multiplicity of relatively 
narrow factions. If that goes very far, we'll end up with people on both 
extremes calling the moderates "SOOP Nazis".

-- 
Henry of Maldon/Alex Clark