This is one of those moves that is very easy to understand when you see
it, and a little harder to describe with words, but I'll try..
I'll break it down into smaller steps, actually just 1 or two footsteps
each:
1. Actives begin on the proper side.
2. Active pass partner by R to cross set, (face out)
3. Turn to head down the outside on the opposite side (men on women's
side; ladies on the men's side)
4. Pass the inactives heading down; turn to face into the set below the
inactives.
5. Men make eye contact with the now opposite inactive man; Women do the
same with the opposite inactive woman.
6. Women first, cross the set to that opposite woman and cast off.
(active woman's R arm around the inactive woman's waist; inactive
woman's L arm around the active woman's waste. then turn as a couple to
face in, in progressed position.). Men do the same. (But with the other
arms and let the women go first). Note that each active person has
walked in a little triangle returning to their starting point by the
time the inactive has caught up with them to complete the cast off.
Crossing the set is almost like a cross trails, but done from back to front.
7. From this point, actives step into the center to form the long wavy line.
This all moves very quickly - and smoothly if done well. You can't be
slow and you can't stop to figure out what next. If your dancers have
not done this before, it might be a good idea to teach 4 of them how it
works beforehand and then have them demo it for the group.
There must be a video of this somewhere on the web, but my search of
youtube didn't find anything.
Rich.
[email protected] remarked on 3/6/2008 11:02 AM:
Hi!
I'm a fledgling amateur caller in Memphis TN, I've been doing this a little over a year. I just
called my first dance with contra corners last week, Kathy Anderson's "Labor of Love,"
and it went really well, so I'm excited to be planning Rory O'More as a follow up this week. Our
band is set to play a medley with the tune, and the only problem is that I don't understand the A1.
I guess our group doesn't do many traditional dances, and there is no ECD here, so I'm just not
able to visualize what "cast off proper" looks like. Casting off is not something we do
at our dance, or at least that is called. I've tried looking it up in a few different dance
glossaries, but the descriptions haven't helped me visualize it at all. Here is my source for the
dance:
http://www.davidsmukler.syracusecountrydancers.org/rory.htm
Rory O'More
Tune: same
Duple proper
A1 Actives cross the set, go down the outside below one neighbor
Cross back as you come up the center, cast off proper and step into the center
giving right hand to your partner and left to the next active person to form a
wavy line of actives down the center of the set
