Susan,
I've replied to you offlist, but I'll reiterate for anyone else who may be
passing through Memphis, Tennessee: This is the Volunteer state and we love
volunteer guest callers in Memphis, and the people to contact about calling
here are Joan and Ernest Kelly. Contact info may be found here on the Memphis
Contra Dancers webpage: http://members.aol.com/horselovers/index.html
Rich,
Thank you so much for your prompt and wonderfully clear explanation of the
entire sequence in A1 and of casting off proper in particular! The entire A1
seems very clear to me now; casting off proper is kind of like a same gender
courtesy turn. I think I will definitely find a group of 4 to demo it, as it
seems much easier to see and imitate than explain.
David,
Your addendum on casting off proper, that the actives will walk forward while
the inactives walk backwards/turn in place, was very helpful in cementing my
ability to visualize the move. And I really appreciated how you broke
everything down for me. I don't anticipate problems teaching Rory O'More
slides/twirls as our dancers are very familiar with the move from other dances.
But your suggestion to have the 1's end the swing facing UP solved my problem
of how to get the dancers to consistently end the swing w/ lady on the left. We
spend every learners lesson trying to teach people that the lady should be on
the right, it's pretty ingrained here.
I have a new problem however!
Now that I understand the casting off, these two explanations also pointed out
something I'd completely overlooked in the A1-
that it is 1's/active's only in the long wavy Rory O'More line! I should have
noticed this, it's right there in print, but somehow I missed it.
This is very bad for me, as our dance organizer is against imbalanced dances
anyway, and the Rory O'More twirls are one of her favorite moves. I thought I
could slip this one by, as the origin of Rory O'More, but not if she has to be
inactive for more than 16 beats at a time. And I am afraid I may be castigated
for calling a dance where the 2's are completely inactive for more than 32
beats!
So this brings me to a new question:
Can this dance work if the inactives are included in the Rory O'More line? So
at the end of A1, instead of actives only, everyone would come forward into a
LWL, taking hands with their partner and a neighbor or the opposite gender.
Balance, balance, and twirl, repeat, then the initial call for B1 would be
something like:
1's by the right whilethe 2's back out, 1st corners alle-mande
Has anyone tried it this way? I think this is what I will do, if I don't end up
scrapping it all together due to nervousness or time constraints.
Thank you so much for your input!!
Alison Murphy
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
~ James Madison
HTTP://WWW.RONPAUL2008.COM
_____________________________________________________________
Click for free info on online masters degrees and make up to $150K/ year
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2111/fc/Ioyw6iifnHYB5oYT22mMSjcgoJzv4cUMwQUVR1nAf0QFsvZserdI0j/
