Jan. 25, 2002, 11:43 p.m. (Message 29305, in reply to message 29273)
Thank you, Patricia and Nicholas for giving me another view of this practice from ECD experience much more extensive than mine. I am not sure I was ever "taught" to move in this manner, rather I picked up the habit from observation and it was never corrected. But I will say that most of the time I found it to be done with minimal fuss and certainly not as a distraction from the dancing couple. The practice appeared to be a "freer" and less rigid way of accommodating the movement of couples around one another. This seems analogous to the method of stepping up or down in ECD which is commonly done with the couple taking hands and moving together, or when couples stay closer to the center of the set after a back to back and before beginning changes of a circular hey. I may be running afoul of approved practice but I confess that the freer movement appealed to me after many years of "this is the only way thus-and-such can be done" classes in SCD. I'm not advocating uncontrolled abandon as I enjoy the well-executed dance and figure, but my overriding motivation is always the joy of the music and the joy of the social interaction and if that means freer movement, I plead guilty. Marjorie McLaughlin San Diego, CA > If it is absolutely necessary to move, then we make the minimum, most > discreet movement. One situation that seems to require some movement from > the supporting dancers is when the two men, starting from their own side, > cross through the two women and cast back to each other's place, and then > the two women do as much. There usually isn't room for the casting dancers > to fit between the standing dancers of adjacent minor sets. See "Juice of > Barley" for an example of this. As supporting dancers we take a small step