Back from the Flurry with a few random thoughts.
The trip up was a mess. The problem with leaving after work is that while New Haven's rush hour isn't a particular problem heading north, I hit Hartford just at its rush hour. I spent well over an hour sitting in traffic between Hartford and Springfield (who would have thought that many people commuted across that border?) listening to disco music for my line dance session and doing little finger dances on my leg to train my brain. Once I got to Springfield the traffic magically cleared up and the rest of the drive was uneventful. I found my homestay without any problem, and after a few false starts managed to figure out how to get over to the festival site on foot. This would have been more fun if it hadn't been dark and really cold. Next time: print a map that shows both homestay site and festival site.
Saratoga was covered in snow, with snow-berms along the roads and sidewalks that were three to five feet tall, and in a few extreme cases taller than me. I'm impressed with how very well-cleared their roads are. The sidewalks were more of a mixed bag; most had clearly been well-shoveled, but icemelt had run back onto them later, leaving them extremely slippery in places. The carousel I rode last June was closed for the season, but the park looked very pretty covered in snow. I did not need an ATM at any point during the weekend, but if I had, Saratoga was all set to help me find one.
I saw various friends, whom I mostly didn't get to spend nearly enough time with since I kept dashing hither and yon for my own sessions, and a number of acquaintances from local dances, workshops I've taught, other festivals, Pinewoods, and previous Flurries. I ate twice at Esperanto, which has yummy quesadillas.
My own sessions went extremely well. Saturday's Cross-Step Waltz and 1978 Disco Line Dances were especially well-attended ("packed" would be a reasonable description of the latter, and "crowded" for the former). I was more nervous about the latter, since I'd never done such a long session of line dances, and figuring out how to fill 75 minutes with dances which are remarkably similar to each other without boring the dancers was a challenge. I ended up with six dances, which turned out to be just right, and the mix seemed to make people happy. I've decided the song "The Hustle" is just fabulous and I need to learn more things to dance to it. (Yeah, this means 1970s hustle appears on the radar as a serious research project.) I got lots of compliments for the rest of the weekend on both these sessions. I'd been worried about attendance for the disco session, since I wasn't sure there were that many people who shared my secret nostalgia for the era, but one person told me that it had been the buzz all day Saturday ("are you going to the disco session?") and I got a crowd that ranged from people old enough to have danced the stuff the first time around all the way down to some very stylish teenagers. I'd thought the Flurry director was crazy to want this session, but he obviously knows his attendees' tastes!
Sunday's Chiaranzana (billed as the Renaissance contra medley) was not crowded, but for an obscure dance form at 10am Sunday in a hall away from the main site, 45ish dancers and some spectators seemed pretty good. I'd trimmed the dance, since it takes me much longer than 75 minutes to teach the whole thing from absolute scratch (starting with how to do the steps), and I broke my usual habit of using period-style snowball starts and used simultaneous starts, which created some problems but made fewer demands on the dancers' patience. We got through two figures of the main dance and most of the sciolta, and people seemed to have fun. It was especially great to get to do this session with the Flying Romanos, a group which includes my musical collaborator Marnen, who had done the transcription of the dance from lute tab for me a couple of years ago but had never seen it actually danced. Then my final Waltz 101 session, almost at the end of the festival, got a crowd that comfortably filled the room. I didn't turn out any insta-expert waltzers, but everyone in the session made noticeable progress, which is about as much as can be done in an hour with a group of beginners and a demanding dance form.
In between, I dropped in on various dance sessions for a little social dancing. I found much East Coast Swing and relatively little Lindy, which was a bit frustrating, but I did get in a few really good Lindy numbers here and there and some very nice blues. I'm told the Lindy dancers came out late at night after I was already in bed (since I had 10am sessions both days I wasn't keeping late hours). I remain unconvinced that there is any coherent dance form called "the blues" -- it's a form of music, but there's no special dance to go with it -- because I've yet to find any common factor among the people I've danced it with and seen teach it. But it's fun - like slow dancing in high school except with people who really know how to dance.
I observed a couple of sessions which made me raise my eyebrows as a dance historian (in one case, my eyebrows crawled right off my head and left for a drink, the dances were so screwed up). I got in some contra, including Chorus Jig, which particularly amused me since I had just been toying with various historical versions of the dance. They dance it duple minor nowadays, despite the triple figure "contra corners" (=historical "swing corners") and I promptly fell into the trap of my historical habits the second time up the set by forgetting that I have to temporarily ignore my own active couple and turn to the one above me. I only missed it once, though! We were interrupted just as we were getting ready to dance it in the big hall at the last contra session (picture at right: the session in full swing) by a fire alarm, so we waited in our sets while the caller and band told lousy jokes and the firemen paraded around the hall with axes looking for any actual fire. Sample joke:
A: One...five...one...five...
(That one was actually pretty funny. Most of them were much worse.)
I didn't manage to do any modern English country dance or Scottish country dance at all; oh, well. I did go to the Victorian/ragtime session, which was in the gorgeous Universal Preservation Hall, which is still undergoing complete renovation. Unfortunately they haven't gotten around to finish the floor yet, so it was very sticky for turning dances. But when the renovation is done it's going to be a spectacular venue.
Things I liked:
- Great musicians, both the ones I worked with and the ones I danced to. The Flurry has an astounding concentration of musical talent.
- Weird little moments, like contra dancing to "Venus" ("Goddess on a mountaintop...")
- Those fabulous dancers who judge my dance level accurately and push me just a little bit further so that I feel challenged but not overwhelmed or outdanced.
- The amazingly competent and friendly staff, from the organizers to the sound crew to the sales table staffers and check-in people. I love how the Flurry treats its performers.
- My homestay hosts, who had a lovely home and opened it to four of us from the Flurry. The hospitality of the Saratoga residents is unbelievably generous.
- My wonderful Flurry teaching partner Jennie Worden, who is an ideal follower and always ready with support and useful comments.
Things I didn't:
- Pushy follows. This was a new one for me: dancing the traditionally male "lead" role at gender-role-free contra and having the person dancing the other role decide that I wasn't adding enough ornamental spins and simply forcing my arm up and doing them on their own. This totally breaks the connection between partners - I was clearly superfluous - and strikes me as tacky behavior in the extreme. I've danced contra with people much more experienced than I many times, and never had anyone do that before. Not cool. And it wasn't just one person; it happened over and over again in one dance.
- Clocks, lack of. Most of the session rooms didn't have timepieces, which made it harder to pace my sessions (my watch was not set to Official Flurry Time). I wish they would invest in some cheapo clocks for every room.
- As noted above, people teaching historical dance who don't have a clue about it. The concept of miming milking a cow while dancing is pretty much not there in the sources. Really.
- Teachers who demonstrate extremely cool moves but teach completely different stuff. This feels more like showing off than anything else. I was impressed by their dancing but not their egos.
Overall, though, it was a fabulous weekend. I hope to be asked back every year. (I'll even do more disco!)
It sounds like you had a great time!
Posted by: Marilee J. Layman | February 16, 2009 at 07:20 PM
snow-berms along the roads and sidewalks that were three to five feet tall
Goodness. Those Saratoga people must be giants if they don't mind such high sidewalks.
Say, what is a period-style snowball start? I have an idea of what they might be, since you then mention something called simultaneous starts, but I'd rather ask than make a total fool of myself with foolish assumptions. (Partial foolishness, I can deal with, though.)
Did your eyebrows come back after that drink? Maybe not, if they were afraid that you'd lash out at them.
Posted by: Serge | February 16, 2009 at 11:34 PM
I see you managed to eat okay; I wondered if there might have been problems on the Saturday, what with so many people going out to celebrate Saints Cyril and Methodius feast day.
Posted by: Neil Willcox | February 17, 2009 at 05:34 AM
Susan... my secret nostalgia for the era
Wait a minute. How old were you when Disco was still around?
Posted by: Serge | February 17, 2009 at 09:22 AM
I was a kid in the 1970s. Old enough to be jealous of the cool things grownups did, but not old enough to be doing them. Old enough to buy the music on vinyl.
Snowball start is my term. In a country dance you have a line of couples. You can imagine them numbered top to bottom 1-2-3-4 etc. In modern style, the entire set of couples would begin at once, with each odd-even couple pair dancing with each other. (Couple 1 with couple 2, couple 3 with couple 4, etc.) Each time the dance progresses, the odd couples move down one place and the evens move up. So on the second iteration, couple 1 is dancing with couple 4, couple 3 is dancing with couple 6, etc. As each couple gets to the end, they wait out once then go back the other way:
1st: 1-2 3-4 5-6 7-8
2nd: 2 1-4 3-6 5-8 7
3rd: 2-4 1-6 3-8 5-7
4th: 4 2-6 1-8 3-7 5
etc.
Historically, this wasn't how they started dances. Only one couple would determine the dance and would start from the beginning, slowly moving down the set and starting each couple dancing in turn. So it would "snowball" until everyone was dancing:
1st: 1-2 345678
2nd: 2 1-3 45678
3rd: 2-3 1-4 5678
4th: 3 2-4 1-5 678
5th: 3-4 2-5 1-6 78
etc.
In a long set, this means the dance will take a very long time, since every single couple has to dance with every other couple. I wrote this up in detail on Kickery here. Modern dancers tend to get impatient because if they're near the bottom of the set, they have to wait to start dancing.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | February 17, 2009 at 09:42 AM
Susan... Thanks for the explanation of the snowball. As for Disco, I asked because I think of it as having faded away - or starting to - sometime around 1978, when you were 10 years old. Then again, I'm probably wrong because I wasn't socially active in those days (to put it mildly) to pay much attention to much of anything.
Posted by: Serge | February 17, 2009 at 10:49 AM
Neil,
I suspect the Flurry is not heavily populated by either Catholics or Europeans honoring their patron saints. But maybe it was just that we were eating at rather odd hours and thundering hordes of people had been in and out of the restaurant celebrating just before we got there.
(Since the restaurant only seats about ten people total, they would have had to thunder primarily up and down the street outside, but the weather was good and vigorous outdoor thundering does help work up an appetite for when one finally manages to squeeze into the restaurant.)
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | February 17, 2009 at 11:50 AM
Susan... the Renaissance contra
Garbed in battle fatigues? Goodness, those RenFairs are getting dangerous.
Posted by: Serge | February 18, 2009 at 10:21 AM
Susan... By the way, while one's wishes and hopes per se don't affect Reality, that has never stopped me from wishing, and I hope that they'll decide to have you back next year.
Posted by: Serge | February 18, 2009 at 10:38 AM
Serge,
A dance with all the characteristics of a modern contra medley but dating back to 1581 in Italy. It's my answer to all the people who think dancing in longways sets was invented in England.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | February 18, 2009 at 11:10 AM
How about people celebrating Saint Valentine? Travellers? Beekeepers? People suffering from plague? I bet it's their fault that my friend whose birthday is Feb 14 can never book anywhere.
Posted by: Neil Willcox | February 18, 2009 at 07:51 PM
Modern dancers tend to get impatient because if they're near the bottom of the set, they have to wait to start dancing.
I'd get impatient, too. If I hear good music, I want to start dancing right away, not stand still and wait my turn.
Flurry sounds like a really cool event, though. Do you know if there's any belly dance related stuff there?
Posted by: AJ | February 19, 2009 at 03:09 PM
AJ... Off-topic, but are you planning to go to Westercon?
Posted by: Serge | February 19, 2009 at 03:17 PM
Serge: I don't think I have any other plans that weekend, so yeah, I'd like to go up to Tempe for it. Are you and/or your wife going to be there? (I picked up one of her books this weekend. My husband laughed at me for buying a romance novel, so I punched his arm a couple times)
Posted by: AJ | February 19, 2009 at 03:56 PM
Neil,
Yeah, the hordes of plague victims mess it up for everyone.
AJ,
There was a tribal performance and lesson. Needless to say, BOTH were against other things I was doing (the latter actually against my disco session. Arggh!) I met some of the dancers in the performers' room.
For historical dancing one has to balance impatience against desire for the most authentic possible experience. Since it's a set of figures, there's also some benefit to watching it a few times before having to do it oneself!
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | February 19, 2009 at 04:07 PM
AJ... Yes, we're both planning to go although she said she doesn't want to be on panels. She is under the impression that she's no good at it. As for punching your hubby... I wouldn't want to incite domestic violence, but that was the proper response.
Posted by: Serge | February 19, 2009 at 04:23 PM