Nov. 2, 2001, 5:04 a.m. (Message 28022, in reply to message 28002)
I think it was Richard Goss who reminded us, on more than one occasion, of the dangers of looking to the dance instructions for guidance on *how* to dance. To determine the style of the historical repertoire, we refer to the treatises (for example, Wilson); letters and notes of the time also can shed light on how folks danced back then. I have always understood that the dance manuals served as memory aids, much as our cheat sheets do today. Neither tells us *how* to dance. To us moderns looking for insight on *how* to do a dance, instructions in those old dance manuals can be maddeningly brief and tantalizingly ambiguous. To the folks at the time, however, it was enough to read "lead down the middle and up" or some such; they could take it from there. Perhaps the treatises and the dancing masters provided a rule: "it's always this way." Equally plausible, they might have set out guidelines, much as several Strathspey respondents have done, describing when the nearer hand lead would be suitable, when the R-hand lead would be preferable, and when the L-hand lead would be required. If that were the case, then those dancers would have known which hand to offer and when. Then again, Wilson in 1810 might have changed his mind from what he said in 1805. Or, not improbably, Weaver (date escapes me) said something different from Wilson. My impression of all this is that "rules" were short-lived and local in their effect, to the extent they had any effect at all. (Digression: a friend was telling me that Wilson, in one of his books, railed against the "sloppy" practice of dancers who, after going down the middle, came back straight to second place, instead of dancing up to the top and casting off. Shocking, isn't it....) Let's see, where were we? Oh, yes... It was Eric who asked, with regard to the RHJ, "Can anyone tell us how the tradition arose...?" Not me. My experience in 12 years of Scottish dancing has been akin to the first situation ("it's always this way"); that is, the lead in SCD today is RHJ unless otherwise indicated in the instructions. I don't know the rationale behind this decision. If teachers in different groups wish to offer guidelines, or if dancers take it upon themselves to follow their own guidelines, they are probably following in our predecessors' footsteps. I've observed that less skilled dancers prefer not to have alternatives ("we just want to know how everyone else will be doing it at the dance party"). I myself am perfectly happy to accept an alternative handing, in the right context, when my partner skillfully offers it. Pat