Message: 2 Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2012 13:43:28 -0400 From: tavi merrill <melodiouswoodchuck(a)gmail.com> To: callers(a)sharedweight.net Subject: Re: [Callers] What is a becket? Message-ID: <CA+hGDsX+DQgktzGPjgPVXi3KM1bSbXtbDDgv5UR-5WKVyQWJmg(a)mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 To pick up on John's point from this side of the pond, there are plenty of duple improper dances that end with a partner swing for the active couples. There are quite a few dances which could be started in either becket formation or duple improper, allowing further scope in the pairing of dance and music: i recently had the challenge of trying to pair a dance with "Staten Island Hornpipe", which has very assertive balances in measures 3 and 4 of the b-part. One of the few satisfying moves there would be "walk in to wavy lines", but off the cuff i couldn't think of any dances with those "trip to" wavy lines in the B part (I'm sure they're out there, though....). Becket variations of existing dances provided some options. I guess what i'm [being overly abstract about] here is the idea that saying a dance requires certain moves to be a "becket dance" - or that a certain formation precludes certain moves - unnecessarily confines the form. Associating a dance with the composer's intended "starting formation" allows us to not only focus on the choreographic flow that starting formation provides, but to create variations when it's advantageous.