22 Apr
2018
22 Apr
'18
5:13 p.m.
Yes, several English country dances have this; the move is sometimes called “falling
stars” (when there are 3 or 4 in a row). I think the difficulty comes from people not
expecting to move on to a new couple after just 4 counts—we’re used to doing things that
only take 4 counts, but moving to a new couple in the middle of a phrase is rare. I see
teaching that says “look where you are at the beginning and think where you’ll be half-way
‘round” but it doesn’t seem to help much; focusing on “you’ll be with new people in just 4
steps” may work better.
Read Weaver
Jamaica Plain, MA
http://lcfd.org
On Apr 22, 2018, at 9:48 AM, Chris Page via Callers
<callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Just a heads-up.
There's a number of ECD dances, especially 4-couple set dances, that have a
sequence of progressive 1/2 stars.
When teaching them, I find them to be the hardest part of the dance for dancers,
and where it's most likely to break down.
So the difficulty level may be more than you expect.
-Chris Page
San Diego
On Sat, Apr 21, 2018 at 7:05 PM, Luke Donforth via Callers
<callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
> I was recently thinking about star to star transitions. There are lots of
> great dances that go star 1x to opposite hand star 1x (such as Lisa
> Greenleaf's "Poetry in Motion", Robert Cromartie's "Al's
Safeway Produce",
> Linda Leslie's "Burlington Spirit"...); and then there are the star
-> same
> hand star dances (Mike Richardson's "Star Trek", my
"Voyager", Dugan
> Murphey's "The Next Generation"...)
>
> Are there dances that use star just half way -> with next, opposite hand
> star 1/2 way? I'm envisioning something with a bit of a zig-zag feel, but
> that could be done in crowded dance halls where you don't want folks
> swooping out laterally (like John Coffman's "Boys of Urbana"), but
more
> connected than a single file promenade snake like Cary Ravitz's "March of
> the Coffee Zombies".
>
> Are there already dances out there like this?