pennsicdance: Dance Suggestions

[Debora L. VanHeyningen]

On Thu, 25 Aug 2005, whirlygig wrote:

> If it's listed that way on Whirlygig- it's because in one of the cheat sheet
> books it said SCA Choreography or reconstruction.
>
> I'll take some time this weekend to dig my cheet sheet books & sources out
> of my (still) unsorted Pennisc pile and see where that came from to clear up
> this confusion.

There's no need for you to dig out your books.  I can see the source of 
the confusion.

When a dance in the Terp book says "Reconstructed by" that's simply our 
way of giving credit to the person who converted the dance from the 
original manuscript (often in italian) into a set of instructions that we 
can read and dance to.  In some cases knowing the reconstructor also 
serves to determine which possible interpretation of the original dance 
instructions is being used. It does not make the dance any less period 
than any other dance in the book, it just means that we actually know 
whose interpretation of the original (period) instructions we have.

Virtually ALL dances we do (even ECD) have been reconstructed by someone, 
who looked at the original document and figured out what the instructions 
actually meant in terms that we understand and how they fit to the music; 
it's just that in most cases we don't know who it was, so we don't credit 
them.

A reconstruction is NOT at all the same thing as an SCA choreography, and 
in fact, if it says "Reconstruction" you can be pretty sure it actually is 
from an original (if not always period) source, rather than being an SCA 
choreography (dance invented by someone in the SCA).  Reconstruction is 
the main way in which we add new period dances to our repetoire.

-Lady Magdalena Vogelsang
  Barony of Cynnabar, Midrealm.