Pinewoods ESCape

[jducoeur]

An actual diary entry!

I appear to have failed to talk about Pinewoods last year: let's not make the same mistake. So...

One of the few bright spots of the pandemic for me was that I fell in with a new circle of folks on Discord (a few of whom are here). It's a somewhat younger group than myself, full of energy, and a lot of them are into dance. This was entirely a coincidence, not why I gravitated towards them, but it's always nice to discover some kindred spirits.

In particular, a lot of them are into Scottish Country Dance (SCD), and last June many of them were buzzing with excitement about "Pinewoods", so I eventually started asking questions about what the heck that is.

I was slightly chagrined to realize that this was clearly My Kind of Thing, and I'd never heard of it before. Pinewoods is a camp down in Plymouth, not terribly far from here, focused on dance and music. It's been around for about a century, running various sessions every summer.

There's a lot of interesting stuff on their schedule (including, note, an Early Music Week), but what drew me in was ESCape, an annual week co-produced by the local English Country, Scottish Country, and Contra communities. Classes every day; dances every evening, switching off sets of the three dance styles.

So I went to last year's session, and it was the highlight of my year. The timing was perfect, during the lull when the pandemic seemed to be dying down, just before Delta ruined everyone's day. I deepened the friendships I had made online, had a blast dancing for a week, and just generally it was a literal breath of fresh air.

So this year, returning to ESCape was my highest vacation priority. I'm planning on Pennsic, but I was not going to miss ESCape, which ran July 4th week.

Things were more challenging this year, with Omicron raging in Massachusetts, so the COVID protocols were ferociously strict. (All the moreso because an earlier Pinewoods session had to be cancelled due to an outbreak among the staff.) You not only had to be fully vaccinated: you were also strongly requested to get a PCR test the weekend before, and had to show a fresh antigen test to get in the door; additional antigen tests were required each evening before dinner. Campers were assigned dinner tables for the first couple of days (where possible with your housemates, cabinmates, or travel companions), to reduce possible spread. Masks were required indoors (which fortunately there isn't a lot of at Pinewoods), and strongly encouraged while dancing.

All of that was a bit of a pain in the ass, but seems to have mostly worked: only one or two new cases were reported during ESCape. (I'm not sure whether more cases arose afterwards -- it's tricky to tease this stuff out.)

That put a bit of a damper on things, but the event was still great. I've been attending Scottish Country practices semi-regularly for the past few months, but still availed myself of the opportunity to learn more and do more of the dances. There was lots of fun hanging out, playing games (cross-country bocce is always a hoot), and generally socializing and partying in the evenings. (I finally got to try Malort, and am now starting to puzzle out how to use it in cocktails.)

In the new-and-different category, I got my first lesson in change ringing! Kat (one of my close friends from Discord) has been teaching that informally in recent years; this time, they did sessions each morning. The high concept here is specifically "ringing on bodies" -- using hand bells instead of big church bells, one bell per person. The real innovation is that Kat and their friends are experimenting with the relationship between change ringing and dance. It turns out that the major "figures" in change ringing correspond rather well to heys and do-si-dos, so the ringing patterns can be transliterated as dances. So we learned how to do that, and a bunch of us did a performance at Thursday's Chocolate Party.

The Chocolate Party is an ESCape tradition. Folks bring chocolate. Lots of chocolate. Sooooo much chocolate, pretty much whatever you find interesting. A bunch of us got together, broke the bars down into pieces, put everything on plates, separated it into "with nuts" and "without nuts" tables, and let the hordes descend. It's a delightful social, and this year was circus-themed, with Kat providing a monumentally enormous parachute that we tied to trees as a quasi-big-top, and getting to be the tallest person in the crowd with their stilts.

There are also after-parties each evening, with different themes. Wednesday's Pub Night is my personal favorite: an evening of booze (for those who want to partake) and song, focused on stuff with choruses that everyone can join in on. It's basically a folk-ish bardic circle, with lots of songs I know and some I'm still learning. (High priority next year: print out a fresh copy of my own songbook, and bring it along.)

The only downside was that I seem to have slightly injured my foot on Wednesday, which prevented me from doing any dancing on Thursday, and I'm still limping a bit. Nothing too serious -- I did get an x-ray, and nothing's broken, just some sort of strain. The upshot seems to be that my days of dancing with no padding whatsoever probably need to be over: I need to learn how to use shoes with some cushioning and arch support.

So -- not as fabulous as I might have wished, but still a delightful time, and some much-needed social. I definitely plan on going again next year.

Comments

[desireearmfeldt]

I went to Pinewoods with my dad every year from age 5 or 6 until I started high school and the school year began too early for us to go to Campers Week (one of the two family/kid-oriented weeks they had at the time). Have never experienced it as an adult. Or, you know, in the 21st century. Glad to know it's still going strong.

Change ringing

[lauradi7dw]

I presume sorcyress invited you to learn to ring tower bells if you're interested. But the party game equivalent once a year is good too.

Re: Change ringing

[jducoeur]

We've talked a little about it -- nothing concrete yet, but I hope to come join y'all sometime in the not too distant future.

And ringing on bodies is a fun challenge in and of itself. Dancing and ringing have interestingly different tempi: in dance, you're used to all moving simultaneously and continuously, but neither of those quite works while the line is ringing. I'm actively interested in continuing this experiment, and helping refine some best practices.

Re: Change ringing

[lauradi7dw]

I have also seen a line of club jugglers weaving in and out, doing what is in essence a plain hunt. It's so closely related that there is an entire chapter about change ringing in https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1562562.The_Mathematics_of_Juggling?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=PHnYpaSVg0&rank=1
And a plain hunt on eight is exactly the same as a double swing through in Modern Western square dancing.

sorcyress et al probably taught the way ringing on bodies is currently done in the Boston area. It's not the way I was taught in the 1980s, but both systems have probably existed for a long time.

Re: Change ringing

[jducoeur]

And a plain hunt on eight is exactly the same as a double swing through in Modern Western square dancing.

We started with a straight up oval doing plain hunt, and then some twists on that, which was pretty easy. They then showed that that is isomorphic to a hey / reel, and then that a bob is effectively a do-si-do, and did a few standard ringing patterns that way.

Re: Change ringing

[lauradi7dw]

Very soon after that (July 3rd) I interrupted some picnic activities, getting people to form a contra line to try to prove to a couple of beginner ringers that they should take up contra dancing. Some information was conveyed. I don't think they were convinced.

[cvirtue]

Sounds like a great time!

[danabren]

Seconded!

[cvirtue]

"change ringing and dance"

I tried searching on YouTube hoping someone took a video sometime, somewhere, but had no luck. Any other suggestions for keywords to search for?

[jducoeur]

I'm really not clear whether the version we were playing with is commonly done. But "ringing on bodies" seems to be the name of the concept.

[cvirtue]

Thanks - no results for that either. Guess I'll have to wait until it spreads!