As those of you who were at the hatchling party last night found out, I've tried my hand at writing a dance. Martha suggested that I post the dance here so people could comment.
First of all, thanks to the guinea pigs (er.. I mean willing volunteers) who helped me try it out. Your feedback (lots of it!) was helpful. Based on that feedback, I made some adjustments to produce this version that I think is almost ready to go.
Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss
(V0.4 Beta)
Dance: Dale Wilson (with a little help from his friends)
Song: Traditional
Improper duple contra
A1
(8) Left hands across star once around.
Gents, when you get back to your place turn out to the right to give the ladies room to continue the star.
(4) Ladies continue the star 1/2 way until you see your partner.
(4) Right hand allemande your partner 1/2 way
A2
(16) RIght hand pull by your partner sending the ladies into a full hey -- ladies pass left shoulders in the center.
B1
(8) Gypsy your partner
(8) Break down into a partner swing.
B2
(8) Right and left through with a courtesy turn
(8) Circle left three places and California twirl to new neighbors (left hand across star)
Last B2
Right and left through
Balance and swing your partner
I'll attach the version I called at the party as an comment to this post. The major change addresses a timing problem at the end of A1/start of A2. Because of the fix, the ladies start the hey rather than having the gents do it. This also means the gents don't have to start a hey while facing the wrong direction (oops.) The rest of the fixes are cosmetic -- improving the descriptions of the moves.
I plan to try this out again at the next hatchling party so speak now if you have ideas for improvement. The floor is open for comments.
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7 comments:
This is the way the dance was first called at the Hatchling party (although I've corrected some terminology errors.)
Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss.
(V 0.3 beta)
Dance: Dale Wilson (with some help from his friends.)
Song: Traditional
Improper duple contra
A1
(8 beats) Left hands across star once around
(8 beats) Gents, when you get back to your side drop left hands and turn out to the right to give the ladies room to continue the star.
Ladies continue around until you see your partner.
A2
(16) Ladies drop left hands and allemande right your partner half way to send him in to the start of a full hey. (Gents pass by the left)
B1
(8) Gypsy your partner
(8) then break down into a partner swing.
B2
(8) Right and Left through with a courtesy turn
(8) Circle left three places and California twirl to new neighbors
First of all, most high congratulations on writing a very good first dance!
I think I like the original better - I won't know until we try it, but our problems all hinged on what a hey is and how and where you start them.
Heys can just as easily start with all four people lined up, and the ones in the middle starting by passing the ones on the end by some shoulder or other, as they can with couple side by side. I'll try to make a list of dances which do this. I'm only saying this because, although the pull-by to start the hey is nice, it's not necessary for the hey to work.
I think the problem that we had with the original one was simply one of timing. Timing is done better by some folks than others. The ones whose timing is not good are probably not even thinking about it. This is not a bad thing, exactly, it just means that the dance writer has to know what might happen (as you found out) and make sure the dance continues to work anyway, and has recovery points (as yours did).
I figure it's the caller's job to keep the timing right if the dance works well as written by the choreographer. I think that if the caller calls the right words at the right time, in a way that dancers will listen to, most timing issues are solved. Other timing issues require that the dancers be knowledgeable and Space/Time aware. We never quite got the chance last night to try and make the dance work exactly as you wrote it, with everyone doing their best to do what you said. Instead, I had the sense that we were all trying to do what we thought you should have written rather that what you wrote. If we would just try to do what you wrote, if it didn't work out, our best attempts at doing it right would reveal where any problems were. My bet is that it would have worked if we accepted the fact that the hey starts with the men in the middle. Or, in the rewritten version, with the women in the middle...
Just looking at it on paper I like the newer version better - that pull by to send the ladies into the center really shouldn't mess up the timing of the hey - but I'd have try it to be sure.
Here is a really minor suggestion - I like to pay a lot of attention to the B2-A1 where you meet your new neighbors. The Calif twirl to Left star sounds a little awkward since the ladies do not have their left hand free on the twirl. Have you considered changing B2 to LL for & back - cir L 3/4 - pass thru? The pass thru to a left star might be interesting.
Sounds like a nice dance!
Mac
Thanks, Mac. Given your experience I really appreciate the feedback.
Yes, I did consider something very similar to what you suggest with a forward and back + a pass thru. The reason I didn't go that way was one of my design goals was to keep the ladies moving forward, or turning forward through the entire dance. [Fly Around...] I also considered R&L across, circle left one place and pass thru, but I ended up with a couple of unused beats that way. A petronella turn might consume those beats, but it makes the dance a bit too "busy."
And Martha, there really was a timing problem at the end of A1 in the original. Notice that I allowed 8 beats for the ladies to finish the star, and it just doesn't take that long!
It's funny, it seemed like it was gonna be so easy when I decided to try this [chuckle].
how about this for a b2:
R&L thru
Ladies start a RH across star - gents fall in behind their partner as she passes to complete the star - then the transistion in RH star to LH star with new neighbor (in the RH star the ladies end up going all the way around but the genst only go 2 places - not as hard as it sounds)
Wow. I really like that, Mac, but it needed one further refinement that I just finished typing in to my working copy.
I've change the "author" line to "Dale Wilson with a lot of help from his friends."
Next time we get a critical mass of dancers together I'll give the revised version a try. Ohh--this is gonna be fun!
OH, by the way, there's a wonderful track of "Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss" on the new Farmertones CD. I acquired one last night, and think it will prove to be a valuable addition to our collection of highly danceable CDs.
It's my new favorite CD, especially when Geoff and Marc go off into some lovely twin fiddle harmonies.
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