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tags:dance
Slow Dance
I remember seeing an article recently and it was how slow dancing is in a decline as part of the school social. I didn’t really dig into it but I was imagining that future since the headline stuck. I have to think about it more but that seems like such a loss. I don’t have any personal memories of slow dancing (yet, a continued yearning) but the idea of it as a singular romantic act is just a nice contrast to regular dancing as part of the structure of a school dance. Almost just as a story motif.
I do admit an idealistic vision of it.
Contradance
Recently I went out for this historical recreation, and I saw they had contradancing which I had memories of doing as a kid. It was the evening, and I was digging into that.
Contradancing is a group social dance, where partners would swap around with structured movements. A couple of thoughts: It felt so algorithmic, in the dating sense with the staggered partner exchange.
Imagine being in a ring of chaos and people and dancing and having your eyes on someone and then being pulled together and apart. Fiddler music looping. Absolutely mad.
There’s this move the Alemande (naively thought this was related to “hand”, but seems French→German) or something and you both raise and meet a single hand, apply pressure to your hands to resist and do a spin.
That kind of prioritizes human contact, even in a really simple way, to great effect. I was also looking into bowing procedure at the time.
In the youtube video I was watching this girl was demo’ing it. The guy would remove his hat, position his feet and slide them over, bend down fully with a straight back and then rise and as he rises you’d make Eye Contact with his partner.
You could see the impact of such a simple gesture, even through the screen.
It’s so farty and proper as well, which makes it better. Like you have to resist the dance algorithm. Maybe I’m just a cheeseball but I was thinking how fun that’d be in the right setting.
Obviously you don’t need a partner to start to dance, the whole operation was a production of meeting others, in effect sampling the entire dance group assembled.
Algodance
Oh god, this got even better! Words
I found a reference database for all of the contradances, complete with their strange names.
end effects politely described as “horrific” by author.
And an entire glossary of contradance figures!
This is amazing.
A sample:
Mad robin
Description
A sideways do-si-do/seesaw. Or a full sashay with eye contact.
While facing one person, you travel in an oval around the person to your side. Typically you maintain eye contact with the person you’re facing.
Notation
Who you go around is listed. A clockwise mad robin begins with the left-hand person going in front, the right-hand person going behind. A counterclockwise mad robin begins with the right-hand person going in front, the left-hand person going behind.
History
Adapted from the English Country Dance “Mad Robin”. Modern interpretations of that dance added the eye contact. Contra made this an all-active figure.
Defaults
The person you face is across the set. You are travelling around the person on the side of the set.
Sample text
- Mad robin clockwise 1 & 1/2 around neighbor N1
- Mad robin counterclockwise around partner
Open gents chain
Description
A gents chain with an allemande right instead of a courtesy turn.
Sample text
- Open gents chain to partner: