pennsicdance: Musicians and Venues and GOOP, Oh My!

[Steven Bush]

Henry of Maldon wrote:
>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.

I did say *Grossly* OOP.  While some of us may find a few of the 
dance variations (bastardizations) gross, I do not consider most of 
them GOOP.  Besides, we know that some of this happened in period, 
since the dance manuals tell us not to do them. :-)

>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?

I think that there are several dances that we can agree are GOOP.  As 
for the rest, obviously it is whatever *I* feel should be left out. 
;-) ;-)  In reality though, it will ultimately be up to Adele (though 
I doubt she will make this decision in a vacuum.)

>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".

Unfortunately, there is no perfect solution (except in my own little 
world.)  I did say that this is a compromise, which means that no one 
will be completely happy.  If we cannot meet somewhere in the middle, 
the dancers will become more fractionalized.  Personally, I think 
that is a Bad Thing (TM).

Etienne