Dances with a Step — 1 
The first of two workshops for the Hertfordshire Folk Association, January 2002 (It was supposed to be three, but I had an operation on my back two days before the third workshop, so Wendy Knight ran it instead of me!)
The “Dancing English” were once known for their use of steps, but these days everything tends to be walked. In this series of workshops, Colin will be looking at steps as well as dances. Rant, polka, pas de bas, single-skip, skip-change, slip and waltz will be taking their place alongside the dance walk (which will also be given a wash and brush up). The idea is not to exhaust you with a whole afternoon of rants and polkas, but to remind you of the variety available in English Country Dance. The dances will be interesting, including one or two Scottish, not all energetic, and Colin hopes to show you that the use of steps can add to your enjoyment of dancing.
Fan in the Doorway: Gene Hubert, Dizzy Dances Volume 3, 1986
Start with a dance to warm people up and allow late-comers to settle in. “Fan in the Doorway” is all supposed to be done to a walk step — but it's a purposeful walk, not a meander or plod. And because it's done to a slip-jig (which would baffle many contra-dancers) you only have twelve steps instead of the regulation sixteen, so you have to be 25% more purposeful!
Introduction
Gene Murrow says that occasionally he's late arriving at his regular dance group in Westchester, NY. As he walks from his car he can't hear the music, but through the long windows he can see people walking round in complicated patterns. And he thinks “If I were new to all this, would I want to walk into the hall and become part of the pattern?”
In Playford's day we were known as “The Dancing English”, and foreign dancing masters came over to marvel at the different steps they saw and take them back to their own countries. When Sharp transcribed Playford's dances a hundred years ago and gave them back to us he didn't have much use for the walking-step. The normal country dance step was the running-step, described as “an ordinary running-step executed neatly and lightly”, and he then described the walking-step as “a modified form of the running-step, in which the spring, though present, is scarcely noticeable”. Scottish Dancing still has a variety of steps — pas de basque, skip-change, slip, Strathspey and various kinds of setting. International Dancing has all sorts of steps. But towards the end of the twentieth century, the Dancing English became the Walking English. Why was this? Maybe it was the influence of the American Square Dance boom of the 1950's — no stepping in that. Maybe it was because our kind of dancing gradually became less popular, didn't attract so many young people, and the existing dancers got older and less fit. I suspect it was also because, after the Second World War, Douglas Kennedy changed the focus from teachers to callers, and the idea of “instant dancing” came in. It's all to do with attitude and expectation. If you dance Scottish, you expect to do a step; you expect every class to start with step practice. English social dancers have got lazy. “It's more effort to dance it”, they say. True, but it's more effort to go to a dance than to stay at home and watch television — why not take it to its logical conclusion (and many people undoubtedly do). And yet when I play badminton nobody says “It's more effort to run about — let's do it all to a walk step”! In fact as people have become more health-conscious they realise that it's very good for them to do some energetic activity two or three times a week. In the States people will tell you that they go contra-dancing for the aerobic exercise — and they dress that way too. Some of them get through three or four T-shirts in the course of an evening, during which I estimate they do about 300 swings. If you look at the recommended activities for getting your heart rate up to the required value, dancing is well up the list — but I don't think it's our sort of dancing they have in mind. Suppose you went to see “Riverdance” or “Swan Lake” and they walked it all — what would you think?!
In these three workshops I want to look at various steps in the context of interesting dances — not necessarily complicated dances.
Let's think about steps. If we do use steps they would probably be skip-change, slip and possibly single-skip. So let me suggest how and when to do them.
Skip-change step
This is the standard step in Scottish (RSCDS) Dancing, but theirs is much more rigid, with a straight leg as it comes forward and the toe pointed — and it looks great for Scottish. English is more relaxed. I think a jig with its uneven rhythm fits a skip or skip-change better than a reel does: it encourages you to dance rather than walk. Surprisingly enough, Sharp doesn't mention it in the Country Dance Book — he just explains the single-skip.
The first think I want to insist on is that it starts with a little hop which propels you forward. If people ask which foot I start on I say “right”, but actually that isn't true: the first thing I do is come up onto my toes and do the preparatory hop on my left foot. That's on the upbeat — the anacrusis, if you prefer the technical term. Then on the downbeat my right foot goes forward — but if my body isn't already moving forward from the hop, the right foot won't get me travelling nearly so far. On the next upbeat my left foot moves forward until it's just behind the right one, and on the downbeat the right foot again goes forwards. That brings us to the upbeat which starts the cycle again, and this time the hop is on the right foot. Gosh, it sounds really complicated! You've probably heard about the centipede who was asked to explain how he walked, and once he started thinking about it he got so confused he fell over. Please don't do that!
Let's try a skip-change step in a circle, or as couples facing round in ballroom direction, so you can feel whether you're moving in the same rhythm as other people and then apportion the blame.
A skip-change step enables you to cover large distances, but that doesn't mean you have to; good dancers adjust their stride or their path so that they get where they're going just as the music does.
Country Courtship — John Young, Dancing Master, c. 1727
Here's a dance to throw at people who say all Playford is slow and boring. Both A1 and A2 have three movements in the time of two, so you really need your skip-change step. Notice that as the twos finish their half figure eight the lady goes straight into first corners cross, so it's slightly less frantic than you might at first think.
This was originally triple minor, and I learnt it as a three couple set dance, but I often call it these days as duple minor double progression. The triple minor version ends with four changes with the twos rather than three changes with the threes (“Right and Left quite round” says Mr. Young), making it a very busy finish.
Lady Pentweazle's Maggot — Packington's Pound, 1989
A dance from the Packington's Pound collection put together by Tom Cook and recorded by Wild Thyme. I'm not sure whether you would call the tune a slow Schottische. My understanding of the difference between a Schottische and a Hornpipe is that you dance a Schottische to a 1-2-3-hop and a Hornpipe to a step-hop, and that “Philebelula all the way” — the standard tune for Nottingham Swing — is a Schottische, not a hornpipe. But you can do either step to either rhythm, so that may not help you much.
(We had some interesting discussion on this point. Barbara Burton, who was playing for the workshop, agreed with me. Roger Nicholls, leader of the band Orange and Blue, said he thought it was the other way round. Jill Bransby, a well-respected Internation Dance teacher, said that the standard Scottishe step in International circles was 1-2-3-hop, 1-2-3-hop, step-hop, step-hop, step-hop, step-hop, which neatly combines my two categories. She thought this step fitted particularly well with the casting to invert the set, where there was a tendency to get there too soon.)
Anyway, Tom suggests a gentle 1-2-3-hop for most of this. And a note to the scholars: the last four bars are the “Right and Left” shown diagramatically in Matthew Welch's Country Dances of 1767, so don't assume that “Right and Left” always meant “Four changes of a circular hey”; it did in Playford's day but then it changed.
Measured Obsession — Fried de Metz Herman, Potter's Porch, 1991
Let's look at the Dance Walk, and particularly as it applies to three-time dances. Three-time doesn't necessarily mean a waltz — it's smooth and flowing, with a little emphasis on the first beat. The Dance Walk is the way you might walk if you weren't bowed down by the cares of the world. It should be light and springy — the emphasis should be on being up rather than down. In the old days ladies and gentlemen were taught deportment, and dancing too; you can't imagine one of Jane Austen's heroes or heroines plodding around. These days people find it unnatural to stand up straight and move with a bit of spring and grace in their step, which is a real pity.
Let's just try walking round the room to the music, graciously acknowledging everyone we meet. But don't be artificial and affected — that's not what this sort of dancing is about. If you want that sort of thing try a minuet; English Country Dancing is supposed to look natural.
One thing that distinguishes the Dance Walk from an ordinary walk is the rise and fall at the end of a phrase. Teachers mention it when you're going Up a double and back. It's three steps and a close, so as your feet come together do a little rise and fall — but again, nothing exaggerated or affected. You can do it whenever you come to a full close — at the end of a two-hand turn, for instance. It rounds the movement off; it's like a full stop (period) at the end of a sentence.
Here's one of Fried Herman's three-time dances to a tune by Purcell, with lots of opportunities to dance well — or not!
You have six steps for the half star rather than four, so you need to take smaller ones than usual. On the other hand, when you're going outside the other two people you need to take a wider track, so your stride needs to lengthen. The caller won't tell you this — it's a fallacy that the caller will tell you absolutely everything and you just respond like a machine. You get that in Modern Western Square Dancing (and you need it, since the dance isn't walked through), but in English Country Dance you have to think for yourselves — and I don't consider that a criticism of this kind of dancing.
One thing I hate is the pseudo-poussette, where one person pushes and the other just bends their arms. In this dance you go out for six whole steps, so there's even more temptation to stop moving backwards.
Some people have problems with the two slow steps. I don't believe Fried meant you to move one foot forward and leave the other where it was; she meant step-close, pause, step-close, pause.
The face-en-face isn't difficult — it's just unusual, and why not? There's lots of time for this and the back-to-back — six steps there, six steps back. By contrast the final eight bars are quite busy: 3 bars (9 steps) for the lead and cast, and only one bar for the turn half-way. This means the cast needs to be quite tight. Similarly 3 bars for the gipsy and only one for the turn single — and yes, she does want them in the same direction. It seems best to me to finish the gipsy facing your partner, so that everyone does the turn single the same amount. I believe that if you can fit those movements into their own bit of music you'll feel a lot of satisfaction and enjoy the dance more. If you just can't be bothered by all this — well, you've probably left already.
Corstorphine Fair — Traditional (Pilling)
(I didn't do this as there were twelve dancers; I did Elizabeth instead.)
A Scottish dance, which is all danced; the Scots don't know how to walk. It's true! I remember teaching “Unrequited Love” at an Anglo-Scottish Dance, and one person (I later discovered she was a top Scottish Dance teacher) asked “Can you explain the step?” “It's a walk”, I said. “Can you demonstrate it?” she replied.
I want to see a good slipped circle, finishing in a position of equilibrium after the eighth slip, and at the end of the circle right I want to see the middles come in to reform the straight lines.
The Fast Packet — Bob Lilley, CDSS News
A fun dance, and one of the very few hornpipe dances which is danced in the States. It's easy (except the clapping for some people) but as usual you can choose to dance it to the music or not bother. There's lots of time for the arm turns, so go round enough to use up the music. I don't want to see you waiting for the music to catch you up, but equally I don't want to see you both flying backwards on the last beat. It's not random length music you know — you should be able to predict when it's going to finish! The same with the do-si-do — there's lots of time, so please go well out and use it up.
Related topics: Dances with a Step — 2
