Jan. 28, 2005, 12:32 a.m. (Message 40437)
Chris wrote: > That's interesting. Does this mean that skip change was > 'invented' more > recently? Does any one have an idea of when or how it came > into vogue? Here's my understanding, and I certainly don't mind if Rosemary corrects me: Regency period, early 1800s, used a variety of steps for country dancing, including the skip-change which had some other name that eludes me at the moment. Miss Milligan and Mrs. Stewart selected a few of these steps when reconstructing historical country dances for their modern dancers, applying these steps to *all* dances from all periods whether those steps were in vogue at the time of the dance or not. (One reason SCD doesn't do the slip-jigs, 3/2, and 3/4 country dances is because our current repertoire of steps doesn't fit them.) A dance historian acquaintance, whose area of expertise is the Regency period, brought this interesting fact to my attention: the last step in a traveling figure was not the skip-change, as this leaves dancers with a foot in the air; instead, the last step would have been something called jete'- assemble', leaving dancers with their feet together (assembled). For example, a 4-bar figure, say 1/2 fig 8, would have been done with three skip-change steps followed by the jete'-assemble' to end with feet together; similarly, an 8-bar figure would be done with 7 skip-changes, etc. I'm thinking that the skip-change was called chasse' but would have to check...Wilson describes all these steps. What's not clear to me is whether everybody used them. Seems to me the farther away from the cities and towns one was, the less likely one would be to have learned these fancy steps....but I suppose I shouldn't overlook those intrepid dancing masters traveling around the countryside..... Rosemary, are you there? Pat