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sca: events

SCA: dance event

Today was the Dance and Romance event, a (mostly) dance event with games, music, and random schmoozing. I had a lot of fun. This was

jarethsgirl's first event as autocrat and it went very smoothly. Ensemble Rigodon (that's On the Mark's SCA persona) performed and we were well-received; people even got up and danced to our last piece, Rostiboli Gioioso. That was fun! One of the songs we did was a poem by a local poetry laurel that I set to music (based on a minnesang); alas, the poet was not there to hear it. Oh well, some other time. The choir also performed and sounded good. The consort was supposed to perform, but either they didn't or I managed to miss it somehow, which is disappointing.

I played with the consort and other guest musicians for part of the evening ball. It's been a while since a local event had enough planned dancing to be worth bringing the dulcimer, so that was very pleasant. I haven't been paying much attention to dance practice, so I was surprised by some of the pieces that got done at the ball. I didn't know our dancers did Prexoniera (an Italian ballo) until I saw my arrangement of it in the music binder. There were several other balli too, and Gracca Amoroso (a later Italian dance that I have to re-learn one of these days). Cai and lyev seemed to be doing much of the teaching during the day and doing a good job of it.

I got to spend time talking with dr_zrfq, who came up from Atlantia, and lorimelton and ralphmelton, who don't often come to events but like to dance. I met some new members from our group and one of our neighbors who were at their first "regular" (local, non-camping) events.

I expected this event to draw 50-60 people. I didn't hear a head count, and we might not have one because there was no formal sign-in unless you needed to sign a waiver, but I think we were over 100. That's great for a (mostly) local dance event! We had some visitors from nearby groups, too.

The event was at the University of Pittsburgh's student union, in their ballroom. This was the first time we've used the site and it was nearly perfect for this event. It would work well for other non-fighting events without elaborate food needs, too. We had two rooms, one about twice the size of the other. The floors are carpetted (I tend to assume ballrooms have bare wood floors) and very comfortable to dance on. There were enough tables and chairs (while still having plenty of space to dance in), and we were able to have pot-luck food (no cooking facilities on site, but plugging in crock pots etc was fine). Apparently Pitt is enough of a union shop that we weren't allowed to do much setup and cleanup, which is both fine and surprising in a site we didn't have to pay for. Parking cost $5, but since the event was free that's fine. Parking was a couple blocks away -- a bit of a hassle for carrying the dulcimer, but not impossible.

We should do this again.

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So glad to hear that it all went well!!

Its amazing how one's views on event sizes can change, I remember when 100 was a small event in my mind, now anything over 35 would be huge.

That was me, I got logged out without realizing it.

It was a nice event :-) We both really enjoyed it.

It was good to see you again. And yes, I do hope this event happens again. Maybe I'll be able to convince

montuos to come up for the next one!

What pieces did the Ensemble and te choir perform?

The voices say "If you do a dance event they will come...." ('you' as in BMDL ;-)

The event might have been bigger than the one in '97, I figure both were about 100 people? And this one was opposite Step Spritely and Val Day.

Re:Prexoniera -- Cai has been doing a fine job to see that it gets taught, it's Del's reconstruction with I assume your music. The tempi changes on that one tend to trip people up (myself included!), but Brandubh's percussion makes a big difference.

For a general-purpose event, 100 is small to me. For a special-purpose event, though, like dance, scribes' collegium, or a particular time and place, it's significant.

The East also ran to bigger events on average than AEthelmearc does, and Drachenwald is probably even smaller on average, and, well, your particular part of Drachenwald is...isolated.

I hope so too. And in the meantime, I hope to see you folks at war practice.

Ensemble Rigodon did:

Friar in the Well (sung, with instruments; this was our nod to both "dance" and "romance")
Tesara
Ho Ho Ho (14th-century French drinking song, sung in English)
Marchesana
Neptune Rex (the original work I mentioned)
Rostiboli Gioioso

Tesara, Marchesana, and Rostiboli are all 15th-century Italian balli, and in all cases we did my arrangements. I wasn't trying to make this the "me" show; our goal was dance music that mostly wouldn't be played that day otherwise. (We knew people would dance Rostiboli, but we really like playing that one so we did it anyway.) We've been working on an Estampie that wasn't ready yet, and we wanted to leave English country dance for others, and there's a lot of lovely four-part music that's hard for the three of us to play, and when all was said and done we had ended up in ballo territory.

The choir did Tanzen Und Springen, Belle Que Tiem a Vie, Follow Me, and, err, two others that I hope

lrstrobel or

ariannawyn will mention.

Remind me: '97? Was that a dance event or one of the music and dance collegia? While they're both dance-related, the flavors are somewhat different. And by now I don't remember which were when.

The first event of the sort we had yesterday that I remember was the one I autocratted in, err, 1986 I think. It was held in the fall so we called it Harvest Festival. We had sets of dancing all day and evening, broken up by entertainment. Entertainment back then was more individuals than organized groups, but we did have an incipient consort and choir at the time. There was an all-day sideboard (one of the first I remember), so people could eat small amounts of food throughout the day instead of sitting down to a big meal and then saying, "urk, too stuffed to dance". We had the event annually for about five years, I think, and then more intermittently, and then even more intermittently -- yesterday's might have been the first this century.

In the mid 90s, after Harvest Festival had sort of faded, the music and dance collegium arose. This was a more formal event with classes for a variety of knowledge levels, for both music and dance. We had Caroso-style balls at most of them, and balls with live music in the evenings (by then the consort was well-established). While Harvest Festival had always been aimed as a local event and we were happy if we got 60 people, for the collegia we explicitly sought out both teachers and attendees from other groups. For a while this was the best source of concentrated music geeking that most local people attended. It seemed to settle into a once-every-two-(or-three)-years cycle, and I don't remember when the last one was so we might be due. Alaric was the driving force behind most of these.

Re:Prexoniera -- Cai has been doing a fine job to see that it gets taught, it's Del's reconstruction with I assume your music.

That's good to hear. (My arrangement was in the binders yesterday, so I assume that's what they normally use.) The tempo changes there are tricky, so I never expected people to make serious inroads into it.

Brandubh's percussion makes a big difference.

I was noticing that yesterday, yes. Nice big drums in the hands of someone who knows how to drive them... :-)

Well so far we have had 3 people come to our events from the rest of Drachenwald (and one other came to a workshop when he was here for work). So basicly we are working only with the local folks here. on the other hand we are growing solidly. We should break 30 at some point in the not to far future.

Oh we may be sending someone to you. Roy is looking to go to get a PhD in the USA and CMU is one of the places he is looking. He is a really nice guy who we will miss a lot.

I found your Prexonera arrangement online 2 weeks before the event and made copies for the consort. Cai was teaching it with recorded music, but we brought him in to see if it fits the choreography he had - and it did.

A quick reference to the choral performance programme:

Tanzen Und Springen
Las Voulez-vous (Gerard De Turnhout, 2 parody songs after Lassus)
Follow me, sweet love and soul's delight (Michael East, 1606)
Fuggiro tanto Amore (Luca Marenzio)
Belle Qui

We should break 30 at some point in the not to far future.

Wow, that's great!

Oh we may be sending someone to you.

We'll be happy to show him around and make him feel welcome. Let me know if he ends up coming here.

I've done arrangements of all of the balli, so if this comes up again, let me know and I can give you arrangements. They're all 3-part pieces, generally calibrated for SAT recorders, except that Sobria, being in the locrian mode, is only two parts 'cause it's hard to arrange without a fifth.

Thanks for the choir list.

The first event of the sort we had yesterday that I remember was the one I autocratted in, err, 1986 I think

OK, I hadn't realized there was a tradition of more local-ish dance events (the '97 event was one of the ones held in a church in Mt. Lebanon, it was a collegium with tracks of classes on music and dance). I would have expected the numbers we had yesterday to require an event with more offerings (feast, Caroso-style ball, multiple tracks of classes). It floored me that people drove 5 hours to show up!

The tempo changes there are tricky, so I never expected people to make serious inroads into it

I think part of that is a general unfamiliarity with dancing to music in bassedance tempo. Judith put together some clips from balli tunes (in 6/4) and used them to teach bassedance choreographies at Pennsic. Teaching someone to do steps in Quartenaria is easy. Piva is a bit harder, but since it's so fast it has a natural flow to it. Saltarello is a little harder, and bassadanza is hardest. When the tempo changes from piva to bassadanza (IIRC in Prexoniera it happens, might happen when the dance repeats), it feels to the dancers like hitting a brick wall.

If you have any suggestions, I'm always happy to listen as always ;-)

Dance and Romance yesterday was the sort of event that we haven't really had in northern Atlantia in several years, and a lot of us miss it. I really enjoyed going to one again.

I would have expected the numbers we had yesterday to require an event with more offerings (feast, Caroso-style ball, multiple tracks of classes).

Free event (except perhaps for parking), potluck food (ergo cheap and no kitchen required). Basically, everyone who just wanted a chance to dance (and/or play) the day away was going to show up... so I'm not really surprised at the turnout!

(the '97 event was one of the ones held in a church in Mt. Lebanon, it was a collegium with tracks of classes on music and dance)

Ok, that was one of the (more formal) music/dance collegia. That sort of event requires a site with lots of classrooms, which tends to drive the price up, which increases the need to boost attendance (up to site capacity) to pay for it. Though we should find out if we can get classrooms (in the same building) at Pitt; yesterday's site was great for a general hall, so if we could add on to the space...

It floored me that people drove 5 hours to show up!

dr_zrfq had another reason to come to Pittsburgh, so he could combine goals. Were there other people who drove from that far away? I heard we had some folks from Erie (never found out who, though), and I know we had someone from central PA and some folks from Slippery Rock. But yeah, I was suprised we had non-locals, too!

I think part of that is a general unfamiliarity with dancing to music in bassedance tempo.

I didn't realize that people found bassadanza tempo inherently difficult. (I don't. I wonder if I can figure out why.) Transitions between bassadanza time and piva time, though, can be a real jolt to the system.

I can almost promise that we will have more in future years. there was passing discussion of it becoming perhaps an annual thing. we'll see.

Oh good!

(I don't know you from your user name. Are you the Pitt contact?)

oh, my bad. I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Saskia; I'm just one of the regular dancers, but there was so much interest in this event that I heard more than one group of people talking about having another sometime... (I was the one in the green dress with fur, btw.)

Oh, hi! Yes, I think I met you at the event.

I'm glad the event went well and that people are already talking about doing it again. We used to have this type of event about once a year.

I definitely think we should revive the tradition then. I liked having the chance to dance to live music as well. (though it was a pity that some of the musicians didn't get the chance to dance!)

Were there other people who drove from that far away? He had folks from western NY and eastern West Virginia (which looks funny when written out, even ironic since west-NY is UWEKAT territory). Five hours according to some.

I didn't realize that people found bassadanza tempo inherently difficult

When it's set in 6/4, it's fitting 3 steps of a doppio in only two, um, 'accented beats'? As in duple time (ONE-two-three-FOUR-five-six)? I'm not recalling the correct terminology here. In 4/4, 3 steps + pause/close/hop fit very easily (one beat is one foot motion). In the bassedances that are in 3/4 (Burgundian?) the doubles are easy to fit (one beat is one foot motion, no close at the end), but then the sets of two singles become an issue. (side note: classes on music theory for dancers would be a fine thing, I know I need them!)

I had to go back to J&J to find the bits in the choreography of Prexoniera that made this more challenging than, say, Rostiboli. There's a half-bar of bassadanza in the first part of the dance which tends to crunch my sense of timing. Also the "hitting the wall" was actually at the end of the dance, where it goes from chasing in piva (2/4) to a short saltarello procession and then right into *continenza* left and right in bassadanza.

I am DEFINITELY interested in making this a regular thing...I thought annual (maybe making this an annual Valentine's type thing) or semi-annual (one in spring and one in fall). I am so, so, SO pleased at how well it turned out.

Look at me, volunteering to do another event after I was so freaked about this one...

When it's set in 6/4, it's fitting 3 steps of a doppio in only two, um, 'accented beats'?

I assume you try to get people to step on 1, 3, 4, and 6, right? (That's what I do, anyway.) When playing (or arranging) for beginners I'll try to emphasize that rhythm in the music to give them minor beats to latch onto.

Modern music refers to this time signature as 6/4. Duple is not a bad way of describing it; that can be ambiguous between 6/4 and 4/4, so you have to clarify. In period, this would be referred to as an imperfect tempus and a perfect, er, prolation? Imperfect means "in 2"; perfect means "in 3". (Because the trinity is perfect. Really.) So first we divide into twos, and then within each two we divide into three.

Note, also, that there are no bar lines in renaissance music; you get a time signature that indicates these major and minor divisions and then you just read the notes, doing that. It's not as hard as it first looks, at least until you start playing multi-part music from original notation.

In the bassedances that are in 3/4 (Burgundian?)

Yes, Burgundian basse dance has, I believe, universal perfect tempus. That gives it rather a different feel from Italian bassadanza.

(side note: classes on music theory for dancers would be a fine thing, I know I need them!)

I'd be up for that. Can you suggest a venue?

Thanks for the reminders on tempus/prolation(?), I vaguely recall them now. I had no idea that "in 3" is perfect by this notation for those reasons ;-)

I'd be up for that. Can you suggest a venue?

I'm sure that you'd get an interested audience at Pennsic. Terpsichore (Ann Arbor, April 8th IIRC) is a fine option too, but it involves a weekend trip. If this summer there's going to be another local collegium or event with dance classes, then that would be a good option. There are also Atlantian Dance Symposia, but I couldn't tell you exactly when or where the next one is.

I think you'd get the best draw of your target audience at Pennsic.

I'm sure that you'd get an interested audience at Pennsic. Terpsichore (Ann Arbor, April 8th IIRC) is a fine option too, but it involves a weekend trip.

And I'm reading torah that Shabbat, so I'll miss that one anyway. (That said, I don't do much travel for events these days anyway.)

Pennsic might be the answer. I'm not the most learned person there, but I'm learned enough and if I'm actually willing to teach, that puts me ahead of my betters. :-)

Please feel free to bug me about this when information about teaching at Pennsic comes out (and when, I hope, work won't have eaten my brain :-) ).

I would have expected the numbers we had yesterday to require an event with more offerings (feast, Caroso-style ball, multiple tracks of classes). It floored me that people drove 5 hours to show up!

Actually, an event with more offerings can sometimes get people coming a lot further than that. At least one year we sent a fairly substantial contingent from Carolingia (10 hours or so) to one of the music/dance collegia...

At least once. There were bunches of Carolingians at the music and dance that we had in...wow, 1994, the one where Mara did the Caroso ball. That's when I first met several people.

I miss Music and Dance, though it sounds like this is a great event. Luckily, Trahearn and his group throw a dance event every year or so, so I can keep my hand (foot?) in.

-J

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