Dance!

[jducoeur]

Oh, and here's a little note worth calling out:

Over the past year, I've been getting more into Scottish Country Dance. I'm by no means an expert -- sadly, I've had to accept that I'm not as bouncy as I once was, and after fracturing my foot a couple of years ago I'm allowing my style to be loose and sloppy -- but I've become a regular member of the Gender-Free Scottish Country Dance class happening in the NESFA Clubhouse twice a month, and am quite enjoying it.

A couple of weeks ago was ESCape, the annual Pinewoods week co-hosted by the local English, Scottish, and Contra communities, which has become a highlight of my annual schedule. Classes all day and balls all night, it's a dancer's dream, and the community is relatively young, queer, geeky, and thoroughly fun to be around.

A particular tidbit this year was the day where Sorcy taught McCloud's Wedding (? I think that was the name), a delightfully weird, intricate, five-couple dance where basically everybody is active. Wild stuff, and at the end of the rather large class they asked for ten volunteers to perform a demo set during the ESCape Chocolate Party on Thursday. They got over a dozen volunteers, so I demurred, but told them that if they came up short, they should pull me in.

Not astonishingly, the party rolled around and they were short on people, so I got grabbed for a quick once-through and then on to the performance. And it was caught on video, so if you're curious what this SCD stuff looks like (in a rather complex form), give it a look!

Comments

[danabren]

I have face blindness and yet after all these years you look exactly the same :D

What a fun dance, that tall dude in the blue t-shirt never stopped moving and I'm exhausted just watching him.

[jducoeur]

Heh -- yeah, that's Austen, initially in first position and then in third. Those are the nominally-active positions in this dance, and as you say, they're in continuous motion. (And it's pretty complicated, with some unusual details, including a notionally-improper position for a chunk of it.)

If you do the dance all the way through -- five repeats, rather than the two we demo'ed here -- everybody does each position once, so everybody gets to do that long stretch.

[laurion]

Years ago Amanda and I went to a three-day-weekend folk dance conference. I remember SCD being quite fun. ECD and Contra were the mainstays of the weekend, but there were special sessions on SCD and one on Kerry Sets which are -incredibly- tight and fast paced. Roughly the idea of doing 4 person sets (with polka like steps and figures that hearken to American Square Dance) in the space of a kitchen table.

[jducoeur]

Yeah -- we've had Kerry Sets demonstrations at ESCape (mainly during Pub Night, which is a very crowded environment). Looks like a lot of fun, but more of a game for the younger dancers.

[laurion]

Agreed. This was over a decade ago and most of the conference was older dancers (not like your recent experiences) so we -were- some of the younger dancers. And out grounding in pattern and called dances gave us an advantage in being able to succeed at the dance. But I think we'd need a lot more practice to have made it look and feel fluid, for sure.

[mneme]

I haven't done SCD since marcmagus's wedding. It's never been a huge thing for me since I was slowing on regency when people started falling into the SCD space (in favor of spending the time learning Blues) but complicated country dances are really fun!

I'm totally blanking on the name of the regency "scotch" reel dance with no couples and 9 people (arranged in a square) where the sequence has everyone dance with everyone as different reel combinations are run and then the lines change places (with a hat for whichever person is in the center) but this feels a bit like that did to me.

[jducoeur]

I haven't done SCD since marcmagus's wedding. It's never been a huge thing for me since I was slowing on regency when people started falling into the SCD space (in favor of spending the time learning Blues) but complicated country dances are really fun!

Hah -- small world. I've gotten to know Marc and Keira through SCD; they were over at my house for gaming just last week! Didn't realize you knew them.

I'm totally blanking on the name of the regency "scotch" reel dance with no couples and 9 people (arranged in a square) where the sequence has everyone dance with everyone as different reel combinations are run and then the lines change places (with a hat for whichever person is in the center) but this feels a bit like that did to me.

Don't recall the name, but Kat also taught that one as part of the same class series as this. (Which was basically "weirdly-shaped SCD".)

[mneme]

Of course! I've known Marc for...decades, now; we met when he was in college at one of the I-Cons and have been friends since (albiet ones who don't meet in person much these days, sadly), and Kiera once they started dating and she started going to Susan's regency practices with him.

I've been wracking my brain for the name of that dance since you posted this, but to no avail. Obviously Kat still knows it since she just taught it; it's a hoot. And -absolutely- "weirdly shaped SCD" (even if I first learned it as Regency, which it's also appropriate for).

[sorcyress]

The Bumpkin! It's a delightful little dance!

(I think in non SCD spaces, it's often called "The Country Bumpkin", but we drop the adjective for the SCD.)

Also psst! Don't know if you've heard, but I'm using they pronouns now! It's pretty great!

~Sor

[mneme]

Yes, Bumpkin! Article functionally optional.

And yeah, you've been gender Awesome (with varying flavoring) since I've known you; just blipped on pronouns; whoops!