strathspey@strathspey.org:8397

Priscilla M. Burrage

Re: Mairi's Wedding

July 31, 1997, 11:51 p.m. (Message 8397, in reply to message 8385)

On Thu, 31 Jul 1997, M Sheffield wrote:

> >eye contact,

> You don't have to be in the prescribed position to look at someone. Au
> contraire, eye contact helps enormously in hinting imminent variants of a
> figure, and taking up the cue and acting accordingly.

I "see" the dancers behind me and the dancers in all the sets.  How many of 
you will reach this level of dancing if you are continually dancing with 
just your partner and can't expand your horizons to include even your own 
set?    Bruce Hamilton now has a series of classes aimed at helping dances 
achieve this attribute among others.

> >covering,
> I was thinking about dancing not demonstrating.

Here I go again:  We use the word "covering" as though all we are is a 
team of demonstrators.  In fact if you are dancing socially you are 
dancing together with the whole and you can look (or feel) other sets 
"covering"  My, how I hate that word!  But then shouting "Togetherness" at 
a class of Scottish dancers wouldn't achieve the right results either.  


> In fact, going back in time a little, when formal dances were the one place
> where polite society allowed a little mild flirting, many dancers were
> there just to show off and attract a partner, so we could say that fancy
> stepwork, turns, twiddles and handstands are all part of the tradtion.
> Don't we want to keep tradition alive?

I believe that there were more rules about does and don't then there are now.
The tiniest movements were considered flirtaceous and good footwork and 
displaying knowledge of how to dance were a compliments to one's partner.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Priscilla Burrage       Vermont US
(xxxxxxxx@xxx.xxx.xxx)