strathspey@strathspey.org:27692

Adam Hughes

Re: Square dancing. Was: Contra dancing

Oct. 3, 2001, 2:03 p.m. (Message 27692, in reply to message 27684)

Thanks Pat.  I didn't appreciate the difference.  It sounds like here we 
get some "Traditional" square at our fortnightly contra evenings, and it 
is the "Western" Square dancers who get uptight about us not doing them 
right, much like some of the SCDers get when we dance Posties Jig twice 
through without stopping at a Ceilidh.

The point was:
Calling and writing cribs, listening to callers and reading cribs.  They 
are two parallel sets of skills, and neither is harder than the other. 
America has lots of good callers, the UK has fewer, but cribs only need 
writing once well to still be valid.  Both western square clubs and SCD 
clubs attach a mystique to reading these runes, which I think is daft.

What can we do to make cribbing more accessible?  Since the accepted 
method of learnig a dance for a SCD ball is by cribbing, should we be 
teaching cribbing in classes, as much as teaching by walk through?  Has 
anyone any good resource for teaching people to read cribs?

Adam
Cambridge, UK.