On 3/3/2014 7:06 PM, Aahz Maruch wrote:
I was talking with one of my partners last night about this thread, and
zie suggested that if you actually had four couples, Postie's Jig might
work well.
I've been looking at this thread as someone who calls English and
one-night-stand dances and tried for some years to get English ceilidh
dancing going in the Bay Area.
If you're willing to do things that aren't recognizable as contra
dances, there are hundreds and hundreds of small-set dances. There are
tens of Scottish dances easier than Postie's Jig, there are cheerful
squares in the English/British country tradition (Cumberland Square 8 is
my frequent go to, but there's Goathland Square), zillions of two-couple
and three-couple sets, etc. Most of them call for fairly specific tunes
or types of tunes.
My "what if hardly anybody turns up" list of gotos for English dances
include:
2-cpl
--------------
Rufty-Tufty
Hit and Miss
Heartsease (but only if you've done the others first)
Handel With Care
Three-Couple
-------------------
Black Nag (yes, there's a hey, but you can either just teach it or live
with it.)
Upon A Summer's Day
Trip to Tunbridge (very similar to Chorus Jig as three-couple)
Come Let's Be Merry
Young Widow fixup (1s have nothing to do in the last four bars so they
can just go to the bottom and new 1s start.
Four-Couple
------------------
Marlbrouk (Cotillion)
Cumberland Square
Triple Minors Scottish Style (four couple longways, each couple active
twice and to the bottom)
Broom, the Bonny Bonny Broom
Five-Couple
----------------
Levi Jackson Rag (but with five couples you can just do duple-minor
longways and be happy enough)
That doesn't make a program for exclusively first-timers, but for them
you can also use existing whole-set dances, make up dances, etc.
-- Alan
