[Callers] Re: [External] Fw: Need help fitting to a tune

I really don't have time to get sucked into an interesting philosophical discussion today, but it's catnip for me and I can't resist. I think we've got two different categories that have the same name (or at least the same informal name). Levi Jackson situation: - It was written for ECD audiences with a tune of its own, by an Englishman, and it has been a popular and beloved dance at many American ECD dances for many years. (When I got to the Bay Area in 1985 it was already something that the band could just play and regulars would form up and do.) - It was deliberately written in American Contra style (as was "Long Pond", where Shaw even says so) at a time when that style was very different from today, and it was written specifically for a specific American location. - It's been done successfully at some Contra dance events. Some category questions (and my preliminary answers): - Is it an "English" dance? Yes, an Englishman wrote it. (Are Colin Hume's square dances, intentionally written as American squares, English dances? Yes, an Englishman wrote it. But also no, not written to be an English country dance.) (But also Americans, Canadians, Belgians write "English" dances in the sense of being intended to fit into that tradition.) - Is it an "English country dance"? It is done at English country dances in the US and England, so apparently a lot of people think so, and while it definitely fits into the UK ECD parameters (where they do what we'd call chestnut contras and trad dances with swings as well as what Americans would recognize as modern ECD all just mixed together) and with all kinds of formations? The fact of it using square and contra dance moves doesn't disqualify a dance from being ECD. (I'm unaware of any argument that "Winter Dreams Waltz", which has stuff like pass through and courtesy turn into a left hand star, isn't an ECD.) - Is it a contra dance? Well, I guess, if it's being done at contra dances (and you should youtube up the Berea dancers performing it, because the way they do it awesome.), uses contra dance figures, etc. It's in an unusual formation for contra but if triplets are contras and circle mixers are contras then LJR can be a costume. (It having been designed for a specific tune is outside the usual modern contra categories, but you can do Wizard's Walk to other tunes - it's a contra for sure.) - Can something be both an English country dance and a contra dance? (I think in England, at least, it can be, but the attitude and styling with which contra is done at an English dance club isn't the same as at a dedicated contra series). So I think what we've got is that dances have a cloud of attributes around them - belongs to this category and that category and that category - rather than *essentially* being a thing even if intended to be the thing - and the useful question for the caller isn't "Is it an X" but "will it work at the kind of dance I'm programming" - which varies between venues and also on whether the caller can put it across. -- Alan ________________________________________ From: John Sweeney via Contra Callers <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2022 3:26 PM To: 'Contra Callers' Subject: [Callers] Re: [External] Fw: Need help fitting to a tune Hi all, Seth asked “Is "Levi Jackson Rag" an English Dance?”. The answer is very simple. It was written by an English man so, yes, it is an English dance! Modern American ECD is a small subset of English country dancing! See also: http://contrafusion.co.uk/EnglishAmerican.html I have asked many times for the American ECD callers to define exactly what American ECD is, but no-one has been able to give an answer. Basically because it is the subset of dances that a particular group want to use in their community at a particular time. The best definition I could come up with is the one I put in Wikipedia: “While English Folk Dance Clubs generally embrace all types of country dance, American English Country Dance (ECD) groups tend to exclude modern contra dances and square dances.” I have been to American ECD sessions where a wider range of dances are used, and if you look through some of the groups’ archives you will find a much wider range of dances fifty years ago. Happy dancing, John John Sweeney, Dancer, England john(a)modernjive.com 01233 625 362 & 07802 940 574 http://contrafusion.co.uk/KentCeilidhs.html for Live Music Ceilidhs http://www.contrafusion.co.uk for Dancing in Kent http://www.modernjive.com for Modern Jive DVDs