strathspey@strathspey.org:41842

Anselm Lingnau

Re: The 51st Country Dance (Laufen Reel), also known as St Valery' s Reel

Aug. 1, 2005, 10:28 a.m. (Message 41842, in reply to message 41822)

xxxxxxxx@xxx.xxx wrote:

> I've never heard this dance called "Laufen Reel" or "St. Valery's Reel."
> The original choreographers were probably held at Oflag VII-C, a POW camp
> for officers, at Laufen, Bavaria, following the debacle at St.
> Valery-en-Caux in 1940.

The dance was originally called »The 51st Country Dance (Laufen Reel)« and 
went through a succession of monikers (including »The St Valéry Reel«) before 
acquiring today's title.

I wrote up some notes on the history of the Reel of the 51st Divison at

  http://my.strathspey.org/anselm/stories/reelofthe51st.html

The information comes from earlier Strathspey postings (most notably from 
Harry Ways and Alan Mair) as well as other web pages.

Regarding John Clark's query, I don't think that the original 51st Country 
Dance used the couples-1-and-3-start method, the approach having fallen into 
disuse. It is fairly straightforward to modify the Reel of the 51st 
Division's choreography for a 5-couple dance, Black-Mountain-Reel style, with 
1s and 3s starting simultaneously, but of course 1st couple will only dance 
twice through (once from 1st place, once from 3rd place).

Anselm
-- 
Anselm Lingnau, Frankfurt, Germany ..................... xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Emacs can do anything ... just ask it.                             -- Rob Pike