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Dance Technique: Dances with a Step — 2
The second of two workshops for the Hertfordshire Folk Association, January 2002
Blareham Reel — John Smart, Seven Essex Dances
This is one of the few dances in my repertoire which use a pas de bas step.
Pas de bas is just an ordinary setting step. Try it taking hands in a circle. Then do two on the spot (R, L, R, L — 4 bars) followed by two turning 90° clockwise each step (4 bars) — repeat all this three times (total 32 bars). Now try the same thing with a partner using ballroom hold. Now try dancing round another couple. Unlike a polka round, there's no preliminary spring; it's a much flatter step. Dance with the whole body, not just the feet. If you're not rising at the right time, try falling onto the beat; this automatically means you will have risen first. Don't try and take huge strides.
My card for this dance doesn't mention steps except the pas de bas for the final dance around. What should we do as dancers in a case like this? In Scottish there's no decision to be made — it's all danced. And if you saw Scottish dancers doing this dance (with a Scottish poussette rather than a dance around) you'd be convinced that it was a Scottish dance. In American ditto — it's all walked. But in English we have a choice. In Playford's day it was up to the individual dancers what steps they did, and it wouldn't be the same each time through the dance. These days we tend to dance reels and figures of eight, and walk the rest. I'm going to leave it to you. Of course you and your partner need to come to an agreement, but you also need to consider each new couple as you start to dance with them and adjust accordingly — just as they would have done in Playford's day. That's a part of social dancing too — being aware of other people's preferences or problems. If you were in a display team I'd most certainly be telling you when to dance and when to walk, but that's a different situation altogether.
Cupid's Garden — Marjorie Heffer and William Porter, Maggot Pie, 1932
Here's one of my favourite Maggot Pie dances. They took an old tune and fitted a new dance to it brilliantly — without having any tradition of composing new dances to fall back on. The tune is mainly in three-time, but it switches to four-time in the middle of the B-music, and that's where the dance writers very cleverly fit in the three standard Playford introductions.
In the Grand Square introduction, try not to blur the edges — I don't want to see you just drifting vaguely about. Three steps to lead in or fall back and turn a quarter, three steps to lead out and face or move in to meet, three steps to turn half-way and be ready for the next move. I do it with inside hands throughout; they wrote it with right hands throughout. There's no spare time, but you can dance it to the music and still put a bit of style into it.
In the first figure, on the other hand, there's really too much music. Six steps for the men to move in and face back; six steps to cross with your partner — you're in great danger of getting there too soon and waiting for the music. You can't even move in a big curve, or you'll be hitting the other people in your set. The answer is to take smaller steps — but without making it look mincing and affected. And if the people who are not moving in take a step back, you can open the whole thing out. On the sixth beat of the music where you cross with your partner I want you there, inside hands joined, ready to surge forward a double as the music changes to four-time. But not on the fifth beat. If you had an audience, I would not want them to know that the set was going to open up until it actually happened.
You finish B1 with the left-hand turn ¾ into a square, and then the ladies move in and turn left to face. If you're not careful, they've already started moving in by the end of the turn. It takes a bit of skill, and attention to the music, but I certainly get great satisfaction from fitting the dance to the music in this way. Again, if the men move out slightly it helps to open the dance up and give the ladies somewhere to go in their six steps.
In the second figure there's no music to spare, and some people get disoriented. Three steps to turn half-way and stay facing, then three steps to turn single half-way and face the next. I know these days if we do a clockwise turn we expect to follow it with an anti-clockwise turn single — curving out of the turn — but that's not the way they wrote it. I admit I've changed one of their other dances — The Merry Andrew — because the stars and turn singles in the same direction make me dizzy, but that's not a problem in this case. And the second turn single to the left flows beautifully into Cecil Sharp siding with the next. The turn singles while the other people cross the set would have been to the right in those days, but I don't have strong feelings about it. I suggest that after the six steps when you cross with your opposite you finish facing that opposite (as is normal in a cross over) and then use all six steps to turn single.
The third figure is just very disorienting, and it feels very odd to honour your partner whom you haven't seen for ages.
Double Lead Through — CDM2, Traditional
It looks such a simple dance, and yet there are plenty of opportunities to do it well, or not. Forward and back, with a bow — how could anyone do that wrong? Well, some people seem incapable of doing three steps and a close — they're already falling back on the fourth beat. Some people feel they have to slap hands with their partner as they meet, which is something that comes from Modern Western Square Dancing and in my opinion is totally out of place in Playford-style or traditional-style dances. And some people seem really embarrassed by the bow, so either it's very formal or it's twee. You've got to think about context. This is a traditional dance, collected from some villagers somewhere. They weren't pretending to be lords and ladies — they were just acknowledging their partner with a bit of courtesy, which you can do whatever social class you belong to.
The lead down and back, or up and back — some people take too long; some men do three steps and then throw their partner into the other hand and drag her back. I don't want it to look rushed, but the ones must be out of the way before the twos start, and the twos must be back in place facing their partners before the stepping begins.
See the section of notes on Rant Step.
Black Mountain Reel — Derek Haynes
Scottish dances are often in four couple longways sets but with only three couples working at each turn of the dance. It's actually a very short triple minor set, but don't try and explain that to the Scots — they won't know what you're talking about! Often the ones get into middle place and do most of the dance from there — it gives them access to the other four dancers, and they can do things with their first corners and then second. A very clever variation on this is a five couple set with both ones and threes active. The actives move down a place and now it's as if each active couple is in the middle of their own three couple set — but the middle couple of the five is in both sets. There's an even cleverer dance in this format called Polharrow Burn, with half diagonal reels of four, but this one's enough to be going on with. The whole dance is to a skip-change, so there are no variations in the step to confuse you. I'm not going to demand that you make it look Scottish, but you really have to move in some of it — and that means leaning forwards into the step and giving plenty of weight in the turns.
Let's start by moving the actives down one place, identifying your first and second corners, and then trying A2 to the music. I hope the original fours are on their toes in middle place, with people coming at them in all directions!
The Scotch Measure — Thomas Bray Country Dances, 1699
Here's one danced to a 1-2-3-hop — and it really needs to be danced with a bit of oomph, or you just won't get there. Only three bars for the ones to cross and curve round into a line, and then you lead up with a 1-2-3-hop in the fourth bar. People usually don't believe this until they've tried and failed! The interpretation is by Christine Helwig but she doesn't mention any step, so maybe they would walk it in the States. For the circling and corners crossing I would drop down to a walk step, but with this sort of tune I feel a swagger is more in keeping than the usual restrained dance walk. See what the music tells you.
