19 May
2022
19 May
'22
2:33 p.m.
In my experience wedding dancers can learn four, maybe five dances.
You do one seriously easy circle mixer dance IMMEDIATELY after the
toasts while everyone is standing right there.
Then you do a flight of three dances that all use the same basic moves
but are in different configurations: one longways, one random mixer,
another circle but this time it's Sicilian.
Somewhere in there you break for the cake. NEVER EVER let them serve
the cake before the dancing starts, once people eat cake they are DONE
with trying things just because the couple wants them to.
At the very end you do one more "hard" dance for the hardcores.
I'd pick the five best of all of these and then simply Make Stuff Up.
Adapt Galopede. Adapt Lucky Seven. Just torque all the best wedding
dances out of shape a little until they fit what you have. Take your
favorite moves and quilt them together.
And charge them extra for the research!
A
On 5/19/22, Erik Hoffman via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
From: Alexandra Deis-Lauby via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2022 10:30 PM
To: contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
Subject: [Callers] Bridgerton wedding dance/experience with using non-contra
or non-ECD music to modified ECD/ceilidh dances
Hi all,
I’ve been asked to call a Bridgerton-themed wedding dance. Part of what
makes the Bridgerton theme is the music… So I’m wondering if anyone has
experience (of either the successful or unsuccessful variety) of calling
dances to music that isn’t our normal dance tempo (these sound a little
faster than normal contra tempo) and aren’t in our standard AABB pattern.
Some of the music examples I'm trying to work with are below (I’ll be using
recorded music)
The event is normal wedding fare- not experienced dancers. Which will either
mean everything falls apart or they won’t mind the dance being sloppy
because they’re just so excited by dancing and the cool music.
The dances I’m planning to use are very basic (Galopede, LaBastringue, a
scatter mixer, some version of duke of Kents waltz etc.)
So if you have related experience: Have people been into the music so much
they don’t mind that they’re finding it hard to dance with the phrase and
remember the dance? Are you able to keep them together just by your
calling? Do they kind of figure it out? Other ideas?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCIG6nbyiUM
This is about 120 BPM. It has 16 beat parts that might be able to go A A’ B
B’ or some way to make it work
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKTnO9fOcE8
This one is around 140. Could be played slower. Take some orchestration…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Qi1ApgkdCo
This one is very close to 120. Interesting how the bass starts on melody.
So far I would find all of these tunes interesting to dance to. They are
constructed so differently than fiddle tunes by their primarily
rhythmic—long note melodies. It is the rhythmic section—which does include
fiddles—that make these dunes infective.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMU1RZVX5mQ
This one is a bit more fiddlistic, a nice melody.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZhzFE2C-_w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un4SsyvnKH4
This one is more fiddlistic, too. Around 128 BPM, could be played slower.
Cheers,
~EriK