23 Feb
2013
23 Feb
'13
12:08 a.m.
On Feb 22, 2013, at 9:37 AM, Hgrastorf(a)aol.com wrote, re the
A1/A2 of "Slow M'Ocean":
...James
[That would be me, Jim Saxe]
is correct that the opposite
sex person one passes in stepping into the wave is the same person
both
times. If I'm L1, my current neighbor -- M2 -- passes me by the
right shoulder
and is facing the same direction as I face in the first wave. ...
I do think
(from a safety standpoint) that it's a good idea to keep the
couples out
of the center of the set during the short swing -- we've all had the
experience of the joined-hands-swing-bonk, I assume -- and my "make
the ladies
come to you" instruction really had that purpose in mind. ...
[*** NOTE: To understand the following remarks, read carefully
instead of just skimming.]
In other words, if I understand correctly, when April wrote
"(Gents, make the ladies come to you.)" in her original dance
description, she was referring to motion (or lack thereof)
*away from (or towards) the center of the set*. That is, she
was advising that as dancers advance up or down the set to
swing their shadows in A1 or their partners in A2, the ladies
veer slightly (a foot or so) away from the center of the set
in order to get into the gents' arms for the swing, rather
than gents veering inward to engage the ladies. If swinging
dancers have their centers of gravity closer together than
adjacent dancers in wavy lines of four do, then somebody has
to do some veering towards or away from the center of the set
to make up that difference. April's point in suggesting that
the ladies veer out to meet the gents is to keep people from
being dangerously close to the other swinging couple across
set.
Apparently Michael (and perhaps others, including Perry)
came up with a different, and unintended, reading of April's
comment "(Gents, make the ladies come to you)", reading it
as referring to motion (or lack thereof) *up or down the
set*. Interestingly, this reading results in a dance that
is technically workable (albeit a bit demanding to teach)
but different from what April intended.
To be clear, I can't much fault Michael or anyone else for
misinterpreting April's comment. Indeed I might have come
up with the very same *mis*interpretation if I had read the
dance description carefully instead of skimming past the
comment. On the other hand, I can't much fault April for
the ambiguity of her comment (unless she continues to
circulate the same dance description without making it
clearer now that the ambiguity has been noticed). Often
these sorts of ambiguities in callers' or choreographers'
or anyone else's words are far more evident in hindsight
than when the words are first spoken or written.
--Jim