Tom Mungall wrote:
> Now my curiosity is piqued, I don't ever remember dancing this dance, "Rob
> Roy", how difficult is it in comparison to say, "The Golden Snitch" or
> "Best Set in the Hall"?
Rob Roy is #6 in Hugh Foss's »Waverley Fugues«, which are arranged in roughly
ascending order of complexity (»Fugal Fergus« is #1). It doesn't contain
difficult figures (the most complex is a half reel of three) but it does
require the people in the set to be awake because of the interweaving that is
taking place.
The saving grace is that you always do what your partner does but in mirror
image. This makes the dance accessible to people with a bad short-term memory
but good reflexes, as long as they can find a partner who knows how the dance
goes. Rating dances by difficulty is always an iffy proposition but speaking
as the author of »The Golden Snitch« I would think that Rob Roy is, in fact,
less difficult (but more so than »Best Set in the Hall«, which isn't so
difficult at all once you have got the hang of setting to your corner and then
taking off to the place behind you, which does tend to throw people off at
first).
Incidentally, this is one of those dances where the »official« suggested music
seems to be overshadowed by the canonical recording, in this case that of
Peter White and his band – Peter White collaborated with Hugh Foss on many
occasions, so it is reasonably safe to assume that Foss was OK with White's
selection of tunes. When picking music for Rob Roy, what you're looking for is
tunes with a very energetic »oomph« every four bars for the first sixteen
bars, since the four couples start one after the other every four bars. Foss's
suggestion of »Miss Hay of Yester« is OK that way, but White's recording of
»The Lovat Scouts« is great, and that also applies to the other tunes – to a
point where playing »Miss Hay« for Rob Roy would not only get you strange
looks hereabouts, but people wouldn't even think it was the same dance.
It's a great dance (like many of Hugh Foss's dances are) and if you haven't
danced it you should. I haven't taught it in some time but it's been on my
back list of dances to go over for a number of months now.
Anselm
--
Anselm Lingnau, Mainz/Mayence, Germany ................. xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx
[Homeopathy] is not a herbal medicine, as herbs are often not used and any
content gets diluted to the point where there is often nothing left. You are
buying sugar pills that have had ritual magic performed on them. -- Andy Lewis
