pennsicdance: questions to all & thoughts from the peanut gallery

[Sean D. Sorrentino]

Let me ask you all this:

>What's actually broken here? 

We have non-period dances being propagated and a
second dance community being started around them.

>2) Barn - Good atmosphere, good times - 

>heard and the lists I've seen so far, better then 
>2/3 of the dances on any given night were "in 
>period."

Rotten atmosphere, bad floor, awful acoustics and
people who think that “only” having 1/3 of the dances
per evening be GOOP is fine.

>3)  Split of musicians between venues- not so much a 
>problem, considering we ok’ed the use of CD's/tapes 
>even before Pennsic in the barn to make up for the 
>lack of live music that's been happening in the barn 
>these past few years.  

So we can add lack of musicians to the list of reasons
that the Barn is substandard.

>Yes - there are definite preferences for why things 
>are done in certain ways in the various places.      
 
>But aside from increasing communication and goodwill 
>between the two venues, 

We can increase the communication all we want, but if
the two sides are talking past each other, what good
is it? We say, “no GOOP dances before midnight.” You
say, “new and improved! “only” 1/3 GOOP!” If you will
not listen, why should we consider communicating
further. I can’t see how I can put this any more
plainly. The dances are out of period, not the same
style, and marked for deletion. We are a medieval and
renaissance re-enactment group, not a US colonial and
revolutionary war one. It especially irritates me that
new dancers at Pennsic get captured by people who will
waste their brain cells and muscle memory teaching
them GOOP dances.


>If there has to be a line drawn for when OOP 
>can/can't be danced in the barn- 

I suggest we draw the line like this. 
1. no more dancing in the Barn  before the tent closes
2. no GOOP dances in the Tent at all.

This may not have been the official policy last year,
but by default this is what happened. It worked just
fine. 

I would like to find out what the real motivations of
those who are trying to “reinvigorate” the dancing in
the barn really are. I can’t help but think that there
are some who want to keep the GOOP dances alive, and
are deliberately splitting the group to do so. There
also appears to be an element of ego, as if there are
people who don’t feel that they are “winning” when
they play with the dancers in the tent, so they are
starting their own club.

Domenico


Sean Sorrentino
Email:
sean at seansorrentino.com
check out my photos @
http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/sdsorrentino


		
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