Re: [Callers] Petronella Question

Rickey, I don't understand the difference as you see it. In the original version of Petronella, where just the active couple does the turns, yes, those dancers start on the side, move to the space, then to another side, then to a space, and back again to their starting place. When all four dancers became involved-- the version that Dudley dubbed "Cirtonella" and which became the most common version in New England for several subsquent decades-- once the active couple had completed the first turn, all four dancers were in a diamond. Each of the three subsequent turns moves each dancer one-quarter around the, counterclockwise. Because the actives had started first and had four such movements, they ended up at home, while the inactives ended up in the middle space (inactive man above, inactive woman below) and they needed to move out of the way to their own proper side to allow room for the actives to proceed down the center. Today's many dances that incorporate Petronella twirls-- David Smukler lists more than 100 of what he's dubbed Petronella spinoffs-- tend to start with dancers in lines. That four person ring is oriented squarely across the set, rather than on the bias at a 45-degree angle to the lines, but the geometry holds true. Each dancer moves one-quarter of the way around the ring with each turn. The difference, such as it is, is in orientation, not in amount of turning. If you start on a side, you either end up on the side again or across the set. (e.g., if you were the left-hand dancer in a couple facing across, after one turn, you'd be where the person on your right had been, and after a second turn, you'd typically be across from that spot.) However, the business of moving from a position in a line to another position in a line also allow the possibility (clever possibility in such dances as Pigtown Petronella and Maliza's Magical Mystery Motion) of making one turn, then joining hands in a new foursome to make a second turn. David Millstone Lebanon, NH