Jack Campin wrote:
> Is this the dance "The King of Sweden"? I have it in a pamphlet "Four
> Step Dances collected in Aberdeenshire for the Royal Scottish Country
> Dance Society", ed. Isobel Cramb, music arr. Nan Main & Iain Robertson
> (Paterson's Publications, 1953). The dance comes from a manuscript of
> 1841, the tune ("Charles the Twelfth King of Sweden's March") from the
> Gillespie MS of 1768, which I have ABC'ed some tunes from, but not this
> one. The booklet includes drawings of leg positions, something ABC is
> not very good at.
>
> The introduction says the dances are a sort of fusion of ballet and
> Highland dance. Apparently they contain something called "double
> trebling" which I always thought was part of a West Indian steel band.
Hmmm, I didn't think of this one when I saw the original request. I do both
SCD and Scottish Step and am familiar with this dance although it isn't in
our current repertoire. I may have the steps for the RSCDS's version
written down somewhere if this is what the requestor is after. Jack, out of
curiosity, what are the other 3 dances in this pamphlet?
I suppose that "a fusion of ballet and Highland dance" is a pretty good way
of describing Step Dancing, at least as the RSCDS does it. I always thought
that the main difference between Step and Highland is that there tends to be
more movement horizontally (around the floor) and less vertically (i.e., the
steps tend to be done lower to the ground) than in Highland. The music also
tends to be fairly "refined" (i.e., boring, to my ears!) although a lot of
groups in this area are trying to reclaim some of the vitality of Highland
by setting the old dances to more modern music as well as writing new dances
set to new tunes and arrangements.
Double Treble is a step that always reminds me of tap dancing; I think it
must have been imported from some form of hard-shoe dancing since it's more
percussive than the other steps. The mnemonic for the step goes "hop brush
beat shuffle ball change ball change shuffle ball change" (although I think
in KOS it's actually "hop brush beat shuffle ball change shuffle ball change
shuffle ball change") if that's any help in describing it! It's not an easy
step, and after our problems in learning Single Treble and Double Treble for
another dance, one of the dancers who's a Star Trek fan keeps threatening to
write a dance called "The Trouble With Trebles!"
> I would suggest asking the RSCDS if they can do you a copy, it'll be
> long out of print.
Actually I wouldn't be surprised if it has been reprinted; "the King of
Sweden" seems to be a fairly popular step dance, at least in this area.
This would be a good question for the Strathspey list folks. -Steve
--
Steve Wyrick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- Concord, California
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