Hey all,
A question I've been mulling over for several months now is where the line
blurs from "a variation of" to "a dance based on" to "a dance of my own"
when writing contras.
*For example:*
Last Hey (First Hey var.) - Paul Balliet and *maybe* Isaac Banner in a way?
Becket, CW
A1: (8) Circle
I put it in an English country dance to "Lisa, Lisa"' , a Tango vals by Larry
Unger. The dance is A Lean Tango.
Easy enough to teach as " Hands across star, Ladies ( or gents) backing up.)
Sent from my iPad
> On Oct 2, 2017, at 2:17 PM, Dugan Murphy via Callers
>
Hi, Bill,
I'm pretty sure Cary Ravitz first developed the figure we call "gypsy
star." I know three of his dances which use the figure. "Woven Waves" and
"Gypsy Star" were both written in May 1999. "Gypsy Waves" was written in
2013.
I haven't seen it in many other dances. Ryan Smith and I
I'm pretty happy with the choreography, generally. I think adding a Gents'
chain would serve to make the dance less accessible, and that wasn't my
goal in writing it.
I recently picked up a dance by Don Veino that has an English figure in it,
too. I think the figure is called Hole in the Wall?
If you find experienced folks do those moves faster, you could swap the ladies
chain/dosido for a gents chain and do si do and make the facing star 1 1/4. I
think that would make it clockwise becket. Amble on west?
Thanks for working to fix that problem. I often wish my box had dances with a
And here's the video!
You'll see that several dancers have "too much" time during the swing, but
also that everyone is starting the swing right on the B2, not earlier. Most
dancers are enjoying the swing for the full 16 beats, several stop
automatically after they've swung for 12.
Another note:
Thanks all! I have a video uploading to YouTube now of the dance's debut
from last night, I'll post it here when it's done. You'll see that the
dancers are using up the music for both the poussette and the star, at
least in this crowd. Maybe it would be different for other (more advanced?)
crowds,
OK then... Here's a gypsy star dance where the star doesn't start in interwoven
long waves. From a dance choreography workshop. Been waiting for me to wrap my
brain around it and publish it for a year and a half now.. It actually works
and is easier to dance than it might appear at first
Your dance doesn't look familiar to me (for whatever that's worth)--though
I agree with Dugan's point that experienced dancers will take fewer that 8
counts to do that pousette and fewer than 8 counts to turn the star 3/4
(probably a lot fewer!), so it will potentially be a very, very long swing.
Cary's dance is Woven Waves. I really liked it and called it several times -
and I hav also danced it on several occasions
I stopped calling it because I was not getting good feedback on the star figure
from the dancers.
Mac McKeever
St Louis
On Monday, October 2, 2017, 3:30:07 PM CDT,
Dugan and all, I don't know if Cary Ravitz actually "invented" the Gypsy Star
but he wrote a dance entitled that and a lot of others that include it. Dugan,
you're sort of Cary's protégé, right?, so you must know the dance. This is the
same figure, correct??
bill
Hi, Angela,
I've been calling the figure a "facing star," when I bother naming it at
all while teaching or prompting it.
Also, nice dance, though I suspect that since experienced dancers tend to
take fewer than eight beats to do half poussettes and 3/4 stars, I suspect
that dancers may end up
Don said: Privately I call them stub-toe stars
If this were Facebook I'd be clicking on that Laughing Out Loud icon.
This s the only move in contra where I actually lost a partner. She was
walking backward and tripped over the person behind her and they both went
down,.
Dale (who is slightly
Privately I call them stub-toe stars & in public I use Wavy Star.
-Don
On Oct 2, 2017 2:03 PM, "Angela DeCarlis via Callers" <
callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
> Hey y'all!
>
> After a lovely weekend of both Contra and English at Youth Dance Weekend,
> I had an itch for programming some
Hey y'all!
After a lovely weekend of both Contra and English at Youth Dance Weekend, I
had an itch for programming some English-inspired choreography at BIDA last
night. Since I didn't have a dance with the figures I wanted, I whipped one
together on the drive home, tested it in the driveway, and
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