Hi Jim,
My collection of CDSS Newsletters doesn’t go back to 1984 (when it was published there),
but in the collection “Both Sides of the Atlantic” the figure in A2 is described as
follows:
First man goes down the outside, around the second woman and back up the middle, while the
first woman goes down the middle around the second man and back up the outside (8)
Ones swing in the centre; end facing down (8)
Then, the comments include this:
In A2 the ones dance individually around their standing neighbours, both moving clockwise;
they should try to keep eye contact. English country dancers will realize that this
movement owes a debt to the dance Mad Robin.
The collection was published in 1997, but Philippe was quite meticulous and I have no
doubt that what he published was what Beverly intended. She is a wonderful dancer and
caller of ECD, so it makes sense that she would import the figure as ECD dancers did it at
the time into this contra choreography. My assumption is that the change to a “double Mad
Robin” (all 4 dancers moving) was folk process. And, of course, you could contact Beverly
and ask her.
David
On Jun 29, 2023, at 4:51 PM, jim saxe
<jim.saxe(a)gmail.com> wrote:
David,
Do you know whether the directions for "Manhattan Chowder", as originally
published in the 1980s, suggested that the active dancers to maintain eye contact during
the figure under discussion? I don't have a guess one way or the other and I
wouldn't want to make assumptions based on evidenceE such as videos of the dance made
after the current contra dance interpretation of the words "Mad Robin" became
popular.
By the way, I can recall learning to do the English country dance "Mad Robin"
in a style where the "casting" dancers did briefly turn away from their
partners, but where they looked over their shoulders to maintain eye contact until the
last possible moment before turning away and then quickly re-established it. I can imagine
someone describing such a styling with words about eye contact that might be easily be
misinterpreted as suggesting that dancers face directly across the set towards their
partners throughout the figure. Assuming Beverly Francis indeed intended the latter
interpretation of the action, verbatim quotation of her original dance instructions would
provide more compelling evidence than a modern paraphrasing.
--Jim
On Jun 29, 2023, at 5:06 AM, David Smukler via
Contra Callers <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
The ACDOL database gives the date of Saint Paddy's Day as Oct 14, 1982. According to
Philippe Callens' book Both Sides of the Atlantic, Beverly Francis's dance
Manhattan Chowder was written earlier - in 1981. The figure, as described by Philippe, is
more like in the eponymous English country dance, in that only one couple is moving.
However, I've also seen this dance called with the double Mad Robin figure that is
more common in contra dances nowadays.
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