Tina wrote: > To add to the history that Bree offered, the last time Honor Among Thieves was > posted on this most excellent list (by John McIntire), Alan Winston took it > further back yet. So the whole story, as I can put it together from what > everyone has said, is as follows:
> Alan said that the 'chase' figure was originally found in Playford’s 1701 ed, > Cheshire Rounds, a longways duple minor formation like contra. It then > migrated > across the sea to become incorporated into Appalachian dancing. Ted Sanella > encountered the move in these old-time southern Appalachian square dances, and > in the mode of artists everywhere, nabbed it to incorporate into modern > American > contra - the first to do so with this particular move. Then in 1986, Penn Fix > took Ted's dance and added a P-Sw for all, to appeal to modern contra tastes. It also occurs to me that a variation of the figure is the core of the Scottish dance "Flowers of Edinburgh". (It's in a triple-minor set, so the lady casts off past two couples and the gent cuts through after two, but it's otherwise the same figure, done with skip-change step in eight bars instead. FoE was published in the 1790s, I think.) -- Alan -- =============================================================================== Alan Winston --- [email protected] Disclaimer: I speak only for myself, not SLAC or SSRL Phone: 650/926-3056 Paper mail to: SSRL -- SLAC BIN 99, 2575 Sand Hill Rd, Menlo Park CA 94025 ===============================================================================
