Re: [Callers] 1820s-1830s Dances

Rich, Two books come to mind that might have material somewhat relevant to your request, though not exactly on target: _Heritage Dances of Early America_ by Ralph Page (abbreviated HDoEA below) and _Colonial Social Dancing for Children: Social Dancing of Washington’s Time arranged for Today’s Young People_ by Charles Cyril ("Chip") Hendrickson [CSDfC below]. Here's a little more information about them, with the caveat that I don't have my copy of either book at hand and my memory may be faulty on some of the details. * * * * * * * * * * HDoEA was published in or about 1976 by the Lloyd Shaw Foundation. It appears to be out of print. It's indexed in Michael Dyck's contra dance index, and many of the dances in it (or versions of them) appear in other sources. You can find them by going to http://www.ibiblio.org/contradance/index/by_title.html and searching for the string "HDoEA". (The page http://www.ibiblio.org/contradance/index/sources.html is a key to the source abbreviations.) IIRC, the dances in HDoEA are from sources dating from the 1790s through the first decade or two of the 1800's, so a little earlier the period you asked about, though some may have remained popular for some time after. All or almost all are longways triple minors, though some might be of the sort that are readily adapted to duple minor form. For each dance, Page give both the description as it appeared in the original source and an interpretation in modern terminology. The part about being "easy enough for children" could be problematical to say the least, for reasons that will be evident to anyone who has tried teaching relatively "easy" contras to groups (whether children or adults) where almost all are unfamiliar with how progression works, dancing to the phrase, etc. Even experienced contemporary contra dancers could have difficulties with things like triple-minor progression, right-and-left four from proper position (in communities where older dances like "Petronella" and "Hull's Victory" have disappeared from repertoire), crossover heys for three, or choreography that asks you to turn a four-person star just halfway around in eight beats. * * * * * * * * * * CSDfC and a companion CD appear to be currently available from the Colonial Music Institute http://www.colonialmusic.org/CSD-bkcd.htm As the title implies, the book is specifically oriented to presenting the material to children. But (without having the book at hand to refresh my memory) I'm pretty sure it's mainly about situations where the material can be presented over multiple sessions and not just a single afternoon or evening. I have essentially no experience teaching/leading dance for children (except for occasions when a small number of children show up among a mostly-adult group), and no experience using the material in CSDfC with dancers of any age. And, while I'm a dabbler in dance history, I don't know enough about the early American era to have a clear idea of the similarities and differences in the dancing of the era covered CSDfC vs. that of small town New England in 1820-1840. I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who does have experience using CDSfC, or from anyone who can offer knowledgeable comments about how either the choreography or the general teaching methods it offers would transfer to 1820-1840 era. --Jim On Mar 17, 2014, at 8:11 PM, rich sbardella wrote: