Wednesday, April 6, 2016

16 March 2016 – Westchester

A class of scarcity but with interesting developments.

The weather was awful, cold and rain, lots of rain. The turnout was low.
At the start of class there only five dancers so I pulled out one of my specials, Jane Lataille's Dragonflies. Which I love and which I do to the 5x32 S set by Susie Petrov off her vinyl album Hold the Lass Till I get Her. (The music helps make the dance).

A few more dancers drifted in and we made a circle. There had been a  discussion on Strathspey about this circle waltz and since I had the book I decided to try it out. It is a smashing dance it is it is.
Since I did not have the name tune for Waltzing to Iowa  I used "Penobscott Memory" by The White Cockade on their musical tape "Tartan Stew". The class loved it. There are some wonderful interactions between the dancers. Highly recommended.

Then on to a standard Australian Ladies, and I, once again, taught my Mermaid Jig - The Pawling Mermaid, followed my my Mermaid reel - The Palisades Mermaid. The dance went well enough and I saw what I needed to see to amend the final two bars of the reel. No way was anyone going to be comfortable turn RH 3/4 to end in 2nd place own sides and Plan B became operative.

The Mermaid dances worked which is really nice to know since they are going to be published Real Soon Now. i.e. someday. And a big 'thank you' to Keith Rose who started making diagrams for them before I even knew he had the directions.

The teaching of The Palisades Mermaid took enough out of the class that we ended with Sugar Candie and headed home.

The dances I taught:-

Dragonflies  -  (5x32 S 5some)  -  Jane Lataille
Waltzing to Iowa  -  (32 W n circle)  - D. Schneider
Australian Ladies  -  (32 R 3)  -  Campbell
The Pawling Mermaid  -  (32 J 3)  -  Price (unpublished)
Palisades Mermaid   -  (32 R 3)  -  Price (unpublished)
Sugar Candie  -  (32 S 3)  -  Bk 26/9

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