Movements are best
described with the minimal syllables possible with minimal
jargon.
"Mad Robin"
became part of contra in the last ten years or so. Unless
someone comes up with more succinct and descriptive words, we
are probably stuck with "Mad Robin"
Actually
now that I think about it, one could describe the Mad Robin
action as "side gypsy"
"California
twirl" predates my 1985 introduction to contra. One could
say "twirl to swap," but that is not any more helpful for new
dancers. California twirl is here to stay.
Concerning
"petromella" when I started contra dancing, callers teaching
a dance, would almost always say something like "balance and
shift one place and spin if you wish as in Petromella" and
would prompt during the dance with "balance and spin" or
"balance and shift." In the mid '80's we actually danced
"Petronella" often enough so that most dancers knew from where
it came. Only in the past ten years has some callers
started calling the move Petronella. I will always teach
and prompt this without reference to "Petronella" and avoid
the unnecessary jargon
There is no
compelling reason to stop using gypsy.
Michael
Fuerst 802 N Broadway Urbana IL 61801 217 239
5844
On Tue, Dec 15, 2015, Michael
Fuerst via Callers wrote:
>
> "Balance and spin" has the same number of syllables
as "Petronella"
> and avoids unnecessary jargon
Of course, some of us think that unless there's a
compelling reason (as
possibly in the case of "gypsy"), keeping the old
terminology is part of
the charm of folk dancing (in the generic sense, as
opposed to IFD).
Should we also get rid of "California Twirl" and "Mad
Robin"?
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