11 Oct
2016
11 Oct
'16
12:50 a.m.
John,
Somewhere south of Asheville and leading west possibly into the lower Midwest, is the land
of hands across stars. They are standard in Atlanta, the heart of hands-across-land.
Andrea
Sent from my external brain
On Oct 10, 2016, at 8:37 AM, Dave Casserly via Callers
<callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Jeff Kaufman wrote a paper on regional variations in contra dance. Here's what he
found for wrist-grip stars (page 31 of the link). Basically, they're common
everywhere in the US except in some parts of the South. This is based on data from ten or
more years ago, so I'm not sure if that's still true. I would not be surprised if
it isn't-- there's enough cross-contamination that wrist-grips could have taken
over even in the South. We do have people from Georgia and North Carolina on the list;
hopefully they'll chime in.
-Dave
Washington, DC
On Mon, Oct 10, 2016 at 4:31 AM, John Sweeney via
Callers <callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Hi all,
I have been to contra dances and festivals all over America and
everywhere I have danced everyone automatically uses a wrist-lock star
(unless the caller has specified hands-across because of the subsequent
choreography).
But I am constantly challenged in England by people claiming that
wrist-lock stars are not the standard in America.
When I go to somewhere like The Flurry and see 600 people from all
over the country all doing wrist-locks it seems to me that it must be the
standard way of doing things.
And obviously it has been common in America for a long time; this
video is from 1964 in Northern Vermont and shows wrist-lock stars:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZubTju7g_s
So, are there still significant communities that don't use
wrist-locks?
Is the wrist-lock the de facto standard?
Thanks.
Happy dancing,
John
John Sweeney, Dancer, England john(a)modernjive.com 01233 625 362 & 07802
940 574
http://www.modernjive.com for Modern Jive Events & DVDs
http://www.contrafusion.co.uk for Dancing in Kent
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David Casserly
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