dance workshop
Mar. 11th, 2003 11:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioTonight's dance workshop was on 15th-century-Italian steps. We didn't do any dances; we spent the evening on styling, fitting steps properly to the music, discussing ornamentation, and so on. I really enjoyed it.
Lessons learned: (1) I still don't have a good handle on the rise/fall pattern (we have an idea that might not be right but feels natural); (2) shoulder-shading is finally starting to make sense to me in slower tempi; and (3) my left knee still doesn't want me to do saltarelli (hopping steps). Fortunately, I can fake a hop, and especially when dancing in garb (floor-length dresses for women), no one will know. (The knee problem is the result of an auto accident 9 years ago. I guess at this point it's not going to get better.)
I think one of the other folks who was there gives me too much credit for knowledge of 15th-century dance because of Joy and Jealousy. I was the music geek and general editor on that project; Rosina is the dance expert. Of course we bounced stuff off of each other, but she did the real dance research. My role was to ask annoying questions and challenge her statements. :-) (And, sometimes, to say "sorry, the music can't support that interpretation".)
J&J was a fun project (with occasional moments of "what were we thinking?" during the final stages). Being a publisher was a pain, though, and after two printings I lost heart. I wish the person who had planned to take over publication and keep it in print had done so. Someone else has put much of it on the web, for which I am grateful; we need to finish that at some point. (Scanning the music doesn't work very well. My software doesn't write useful file formats. I need to try to hook up with Acrobat Distiller, which I have at work but not at home.)
Ironically, tonight on the way out from work two of my coworkers were talking about books. One wants to write a book someday; the other was emphatically not interested in doing such a thing. They asked me and I said that really, I'd like to have written a book (in my professional field, I meant). :-) But that technically I suppose I already had written a book, except that vanity press doesn't count. They asserted that it does, though when I told them the subject I think they glazed over a bit.
At the next workshop we're returning to 16th-century Italian, a type of dance that I know very little about. So I will enjoy working on that.
Lessons learned: (1) I still don't have a good handle on the rise/fall pattern (we have an idea that might not be right but feels natural); (2) shoulder-shading is finally starting to make sense to me in slower tempi; and (3) my left knee still doesn't want me to do saltarelli (hopping steps). Fortunately, I can fake a hop, and especially when dancing in garb (floor-length dresses for women), no one will know. (The knee problem is the result of an auto accident 9 years ago. I guess at this point it's not going to get better.)
I think one of the other folks who was there gives me too much credit for knowledge of 15th-century dance because of Joy and Jealousy. I was the music geek and general editor on that project; Rosina is the dance expert. Of course we bounced stuff off of each other, but she did the real dance research. My role was to ask annoying questions and challenge her statements. :-) (And, sometimes, to say "sorry, the music can't support that interpretation".)
J&J was a fun project (with occasional moments of "what were we thinking?" during the final stages). Being a publisher was a pain, though, and after two printings I lost heart. I wish the person who had planned to take over publication and keep it in print had done so. Someone else has put much of it on the web, for which I am grateful; we need to finish that at some point. (Scanning the music doesn't work very well. My software doesn't write useful file formats. I need to try to hook up with Acrobat Distiller, which I have at work but not at home.)
Ironically, tonight on the way out from work two of my coworkers were talking about books. One wants to write a book someday; the other was emphatically not interested in doing such a thing. They asked me and I said that really, I'd like to have written a book (in my professional field, I meant). :-) But that technically I suppose I already had written a book, except that vanity press doesn't count. They asserted that it does, though when I told them the subject I think they glazed over a bit.
At the next workshop we're returning to 16th-century Italian, a type of dance that I know very little about. So I will enjoy working on that.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-03-12 03:26 pm (UTC)Sympathies. We're in the middle of a gradual sea change on that subject, which is causing mild but constant confusion. Carolingia traditionally does the Brainard-style "down-up-flat" steps, very legato and smooth. Now, the Accademia della Danza is switching over to a more Sparti-oriented interpretation, with a strong downward swoop at the start and a gradual rise over the rest of the step. (This is largely Phelan's fault: he came back from a class with her, and enthused at everyone so much that he got most of us hooked on the aesthetic.)
The result, of course, is that the Barony is in a very half-and-half state. The really hardcore dance geeks are mostly doing the Sparti style (at least for the new dances), but the older dancers are mostly doing Brainard style, and dance practice is continuing to teach the Brainard style out of continuity. And even us hardcores are a little inconsistent -- I've been doing Lauro in the Brainard style so often, for so many years, that I'm not sure I can rewire my brain to do it differently.
Sooner or later, one style is going to have to win out, but I'm honestly not sure which it'll be. Depends on whether the current hardcore continue to do and teach the new style...
As for J&J: I'll just comment that many of us have found it very useful over the years. While we're mostly trying to do our own reconstructions, we often refer back to Rosina for ideas, and we often use your music when it's compatible with our results...