22 May
2024
22 May
'24
6:16 p.m.
The justification I heard ~25 years ago, when resistance to the claps
seemed even greater, was that the acoustic latency in a long hall could put
the band off kilter and it was a matter of respect to them. To illustrate:
in a hundred foot hall, from the time the band plays a note, to the time
the folks at the bottom clap in synchrony to when they’re hearing it, to
the time the band hears those claps in turn, is roughly 2/10 of a second.
My counter-arguments to that are, if everyone is clapping along the length
of the hall it’s going to be spread out anyway and not a singular
percussive counterpoint; if you’re going to argue that, you’d better
admonish everyone to make totally silent balances too; musicians from Bach
at his organ console to the USC marching band have been dealing just fine
with acoustic latency issues; and we ain’t the high and mighty in our white
tie suits at the Vienna opera house.
I recently came back from a long hiatus and was surprised to hear claps in
novel places, such as punctuating the end of a hey. I’m delighted with that
one: it means the dancers are actually being mindful of the musical
phrasing, and giving the hey its full due. It’s a moment where everyone is
perceivably dancing skillfully together. I’m with some others in being a
little annoyed by claps after Rory’s for all the reasons given, but I’m not
gonna scold or clutch my pearls over it. I just won’t participate or
encourage. At most I might share why I don’t do it myself. Where claps are
consistent with musical phrasing and don’t interfere with hand transitions,
I’m always going to be in favor.
-Joseph
*Sent from my phone which has some odd ideas about formatting sometimes.*
On Wed, May 22, 2024 at 9:46 AM Julian Blechner via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
John Sweeney hit on a big reason I'm baffled, in
pointing out that the
balances in Petronella (the dance) are in the second half of a phrase. So
what's funny is that in the originally Petronella, it's
Spin spin spin pause
Stomp Stomp Stomp Stomp (or steps, but, still)
And in the modern move it's
Stomp Stomp Stomp stomp
Spin spin spin pause
So the originally Petronella had everyone making percussive noise on that
last measure. And the modern move has people filling in that pause with
percussive sounds.
I've heard from people say "you need the beat or two to take hands" but
like, somehow that's not true with every other move where a move ends and
you need to join hands in a ring immediately - after a swing, bending a
line of four, turning to a new neighbor on a progression and readying for a
balance, etc.
My summation is it's just a preference.
And I notice when bands play chiller tunes for Petronella spins, fewer
people clap, so...
...
Anyway, I also very much would love to hear any other explanations of
"clapping in Petronellas is wrong".
In dance,
Julian Blechner.
On Wed, May 22, 2024, 12:16 PM Richard Fischer via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Hi Maia,
I have no claim to expertise, but I'm with you. In dances where the
Petronella claps don't interfere with anything, why not? Dancers enjoy it,
and it can often be one of the first things new dancers notice about
unified timing. I'm not sure how it originated, but since the move
previously was often spin first then a satisfying balance, maybe the claps
were a way to still have that nice rhythmic end to the phrase. In any
event, why should a caller tell a hall full of dancers they're wrong?
With best wishes,
Richard Fischer
Arlington, MA
On May 22, 2024, at 11:49 AM, Maia McCormick via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
tldr: those of you who are anti-Petronella claps (in general, not just in
specific cases where they interrupt flow from the spin into the next move),
I want to understand why!
Clapping on Petronella turns has been the overwhelming norm ever since I
started dancing, but I know that it wasn't always this way, and that some
folks vehemently dislike it. Well recently I've noted the (baffling??
inexplicable??) rise of clapping after the spin on Rory O'Moore's, which
makes my blood boil (it's so satisfying to catch hands in the new wave out
of the spin, why would you ever NOT do that??), and it's making me think
more about Petronella claps.
Clapping on a Rory bugs me so much because it interrupts the momentum of
spin-and-catch-hands. I'll admit that I don't understand the objection to
Petronella claps, at least through that lens. Like certainly, in a
specifically Cure for the Claps-type* dance (with e.g. Petronella spin into
allemande left, Petronella spin into swing, etc.), clapping interrupts the
momentum, and it's way more satisfying to spin directly into the next move.
But given a bog standard "Petronella, Petronella, balance and swing" or
similar, I don't feel like the claps interrupt the momentum or disrupt
transitions, and in fact are a nice fun way to fill space.
To be clear, the above isn't an argument in favor of Petronella claps,
just me explaining where I'm coming from. So now we come to my question:
1. *those of you who are anti-Petronella claps, can you explain why?* I
want to understand! Is it a satisfying momentum thing that I've just never
experienced because I'm so used to clapping? Dedication to historical
accuracy? Something else entirely?
2. *what dance(s) would you use to make your case to a contemporary
contra hall, that aren't explicitly written as Cure for the Claps dances?*
Petronella
spin to a swing feels great, and of *course* you shouldn't clap there
(although some folks inexplicably do, sigh)—but if you'd prefer that we
didn't clap even in a dance like Tica Tica Timing, then a CftC dance isn't
the whole story. If you had the infinite good will of a contemporary contra
hall, and were able to say to the dancers "don't clap on the Petronellas in
this one and just pay attention to how nice it feels to X and how
satisfying it is to Y", what dance would you use, what things would you
tell the dancers to clue into, etc. to make your case? (And what would you
ask the band for?)
Thanks as always for your expertise!
Cheers,
Maia
* Cure for the Claps contra: a dance that discourages clapping during the
Petronella turn, often by putting moves directly after the Petronella that
flow nicely from a spin. May be intentional or incidental. See e.g.: The
Cure for the Claps
<https://www.ibiblio.org/contradance/thecallersbox/dance.php?id=10364>
(Bob Isaacs), Becket in the Kitchen
<https://www.ibiblio.org/contradance/thecallersbox/dance.php?id=17>
(Becky Hill)
--
Maia McCormick (she/her)
917.279.8194
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