strathspey@strathspey.org:40327

Volleyballjerry

observations on The Weathercock

Jan. 16, 2005, 10:44 p.m. (Message 40327)

(Having been party to a fair amount of "off-topic" lately, viz., problems 
with the mechanics of posting, notes of thanks, language reform and regulations, 
weather, and geography, here is a contribution to the "straight and narrow.")

OBSERVATIONS ON THE WEATHERCOCK, devised by Veronica Hughes, from the Leeds 
Silver Jubilee Book, 1987

(which are not meant as any sort of criticism of this dance that is cleverly 
devised and fun to do)

Bars 29-32 state:  "Second woman with third woman, third man with second man, 
first woman with fourth woman, and first man with fourth man, turn with right 
hand to finish on own sides in order 2, 3, 4, 1."  (This is preceded by a 
four-bar double right hands across and some additional wording that doesn't make 
a lot of sense to me.)  HAS ANYONE ELSE NOTICED that once the "wheel" has 
rotated once around and dancers have begun the same-gender turns, there is an 
uneven amount of turning required for men and women, i.e., the men must turn a 
fairly comfortable exactly once around to reach the correct ending positions, 
while the women must turn fully one and a half times to reach their correct 
ending positions opposite their partners.  I have found that without pointing this 
out specifically, it does not help much just to tell dancers to end in 
such-and-such particular order, and because of this difference in required turning, 
men vs. women, there is a huge clumsiness (and often error) in reaching the 
correct ending positions from which to start the reels of four and begin 
again...until it is pointed out specifically that men must make one turn following the 
right hands across and women must make one and a half turns, and then 
everyone ends up just right!  Since this uneven turning, one gender vs. the other, is 
quite unusual and unexpected, I would think it a good thing for it to be 
detailed in the instructions.  Thus to me personally it would seem much clearer 
for the instructions for the last eight bars to read:

25-28  First couple with fourth couple, second couple with third couple, 
dance right hands across once around [eliminate the rest].

29-32  Second woman with third woman, second man with third man, first woman 
with fourth woman, and first man with fourth man, turn with right hands, men 
once around, woman one and a half times around, to finish on own sides in order 
2, 3, 4, 1.

Additionally, although this dance is neither overcomplicated nor extremely 
difficult in its elements, it has taken much more time and effort than others of 
its apparent level of difficulty for even experienced dancers in my class and 
in our branch generally to learn it well and be able to dance it 
comfortably...and I'm not quite certain just why.  For one thing a collective amnesia 
seems to fall across the sets when it is time for second and fourth couples to 
step up on bars 11-12.  I find that while I'm cuing as necessary during practice 
in class, I am constantly having to chant:  "step-up, step-up, step-up, 
step-up" in tempo to the one-and-two-and of those two bars!

Here are a couple of other things that I have found help:

If, in those uneven same-gender turns at the end, dancers will hold on just a 
tad longer than usual, they will orient themselves for the reel of four to 
begin the next round (as well as remind each other that that is what next 
occurs, as this seems otherwise to be the point of another unusual epidemic of 
amnesia).

And finally, perhaps it was even the intent of the deviser to create such a 
picture, but the dancers in my class have created a mnemonic picture for bars 
17-24 of an actual weather vane (the left-hand turners in the center) and of 
their partners as birds flying around and, when they take hands and set, 
lighting onto the weather vane.

Robb Quint
Thousand Oaks, CA, USA