23 Nov
2012
23 Nov
'12
8:10 p.m.
So I had my first introduction to contradance through my school, taught by
student callers who had been taught by student callers before them, etc. I
was first taught to call a Petronella as... a Petronella. And then as I
started going to more outside dances and started reading up on the practice
of calling, I heard the move more and more just called as "balance the ring
and spin to the right" or "balance the ring and spin to swap."
So, esteemed caller-folk, I ask you: how do* you* call a Petronella Turn?
By name, or with some other turn of phrase? Do you have any sense how
widespread either of these conventions are? Why not just call a Petronella
a Petronella? If you call it by description rather than by name, do you
generally put the entire call together (e.g. "BALance the RING and SPIN to
the RIGHT") or break it up ("BALance the RING... and SPIN to the RIGHT" so
that "spin to the right" ends up coming on beats 3 & 4, just before the
actual spinning occurs)? Any thoughts are welcome!
Cheers,
Maia
23 Nov
23 Nov
8:47 p.m.
Maia McCormick wrote:
"balance the ring and spin to swap."
That seems wrong; who is swapping?
How do *you* call a Petronella Turn?
When I'm teaching the dance I might do any of:
Balance the ring, and spin to the right
Balance the ring, Petronella spin one place to the right
Balance the ring, Petronella
When I'm prompting I'll usually call "balance ... spin to the right"
or "balance ... petronella".
The more experienced the crowd the more likely I am to say
"Petronella".
If you call it by description rather than by name, do
you generally
put the entire call together (e.g. "BALance the RING and SPIN to the
RIGHT") or break it up ("BALance the RING... and SPIN to the RIGHT"
so that "spin to the right" ends up coming on beats 3 & 4, just
before the actual spinning occurs)?
I do the second. I try to tell people what to do just before they
need to do it.
Jeff
9:01 p.m.
I use the term "Petronella" while teaching. When calling during the dance
I usually just say "twirl"
On Fri, Nov 23, 2012 at 3:10 PM, Maia McCormick <maia.mcc(a)gmail.com> wrote:
So I had my first introduction to contradance through
my school, taught by
student callers who had been taught by student callers before them, etc. I
was first taught to call a Petronella as... a Petronella. And then as I
started going to more outside dances and started reading up on the practice
of calling, I heard the move more and more just called as "balance the ring
and spin to the right" or "balance the ring and spin to swap."
So, esteemed caller-folk, I ask you: how do* you* call a Petronella Turn?
By name, or with some other turn of phrase? Do you have any sense how
widespread either of these conventions are? Why not just call a Petronella
a Petronella? If you call it by description rather than by name, do you
generally put the entire call together (e.g. "BALance the RING and SPIN to
the RIGHT") or break it up ("BALance the RING... and SPIN to the RIGHT"
so
that "spin to the right" ends up coming on beats 3 & 4, just before the
actual spinning occurs)? Any thoughts are welcome!
Cheers,
Maia
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9:30 p.m.
I never use the term Petronella for that move. It's always "spin to the
right" or twirl to the right" For me. Petronella is the name of a Chestnut that
the move comes from as most all of you know. Callers used to say "as in the dance
Peronella..." but through the evolutionary process is no longer mentioned. The move
has taken on the name of the dance. That said, if's my personal preference not to
use that name for the move. It does bug me a little when other callers use it as the name
for the move, but not enough to say anything or lose any sleep over it.
Rich
On Fri, Nov 23, 2012 at 3:10 PM, Maia McCormick <maia.mcc(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> So I had my first introduction to contradance through my school, taught by
> student callers who had been taught by student callers before them, etc. I
> was first taught to call a Petronella as... a Petronella. And then as I
> started going to more outside dances and started reading up on the practice
> of calling, I heard the move more and more just called as "balance the ring
> and spin to the right" or "balance the ring and spin to swap."
>
> So, esteemed caller-folk, I ask you: how do* you* call a Petronella Turn?
> By name, or with some other turn of phrase? Do you have any sense how
> widespread either of these conventions are? Why not just call a Petronella
> a Petronella? If you call it by description rather than by name, do you
> generally put the entire call together (e.g. "BALance the RING and SPIN to
> the RIGHT") or break it up ("BALance the RING... and SPIN to the
RIGHT" so
> that "spin to the right" ends up coming on beats 3 & 4, just before
the
> actual spinning occurs)? Any thoughts are welcome!
>
> Cheers,
> Maia
> _______________________________________________
> Callers mailing list
> Callers(a)sharedweight.net
> http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers
9:49 p.m.
I feel kind of stuck in perpetuating the use of the term "Petronella".
I'll use it in the walkthrough because that
orients the experienced dancers immediately and than call "spin" or
"twirl" and probably keep calling
"make a ring and balance now" longer than than I call the twirl.) I
think it's courteous to the newer dancers to
identify how the figure is commonly called so they'll have a chance of
knowing it the next time somebody else calls it, but it certainly is
just about the most undescriptive name possible.
Scottish dancing also has a "Petronella turn" - not surprisingly, since
the chestnut contra seems to derive from something published in
Edinburgh by Gow in, uh, 1820 or something - but it is different in
detail from the contra one. (And in the Scottish dance, the actives
only do the Petronella move first, then balance (pas-de-basque) in
place.) Dudley Laufman wrote some time back that the chestnut contra
had the same thing as the Scottish - just the actives traveling - until
somebody imported the all-in-and-out all-travel-twirling from an English
trad dance called Roxburgh Castle (which uses a rant step,
incidentally). So the whole BTR-Petronella-turn thing is completely a
20th-century invention in contra dancing. [Not that this is directly
responsive to the original question; I just think it's interesting.]
-- Alan
On 11/23/2012 1:30 PM, Rich Goss wrote:
I never use the term Petronella for that move.
It's always "spin to the right" or twirl to the right" For me.
Petronella is the name of a Chestnut that the move comes from as most all of you know.
Callers used to say "as in the dance Peronella..." but through the evolutionary
process is no longer mentioned. The move has taken on the name of the dance. That said,
if's my personal preference not to use that name for the move. It does bug me a
little when other callers use it as the name for the move, but not enough to say anything
or lose any sleep over it.
Rich
On Fri, Nov 23, 2012 at 3:10 PM, Maia McCormick
<maia.mcc(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> So I had my first introduction to contradance through my school, taught by
> student callers who had been taught by student callers before them, etc. I
> was first taught to call a Petronella as... a Petronella. And then as I
> started going to more outside dances and started reading up on the practice
> of calling, I heard the move more and more just called as "balance the ring
> and spin to the right" or "balance the ring and spin to swap."
>
> So, esteemed caller-folk, I ask you: how do* you* call a Petronella Turn?
> By name, or with some other turn of phrase? Do you have any sense how
> widespread either of these conventions are? Why not just call a Petronella
> a Petronella? If you call it by description rather than by name, do you
> generally put the entire call together (e.g. "BALance the RING and SPIN to
> the RIGHT") or break it up ("BALance the RING... and SPIN to the
RIGHT" so
> that "spin to the right" ends up coming on beats 3 & 4, just before
the
> actual spinning occurs)? Any thoughts are welcome!
>
> Cheers,
> Maia
> _______________________________________________
> Callers mailing list
> Callers(a)sharedweight.net
> http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers
_______________________________________________
Callers mailing list
Callers(a)sharedweight.net
http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers 
10 p.m.
I tend to agree with Rich - I just say balance and spin to the right and sometimes
don't even use the term Petronella. I think that it's a little more descriptive
than to say "Petronella turn" - although by way of the folk process that's
what it's come to be known as. And plus in the patter of the call, it's easier
and more rhythmic to say "balance, spin to the right" or something like that.
Did you know that in the original Petronella chestnut dance, instead of balance and spin,
it's spin and balance?
Perry
________________________________
From: Alan Winston <winston(a)slac.stanford.edu>
To: callers(a)sharedweight.net
Sent: Friday, November 23, 2012 4:49 PM
Subject: Re: [Callers] How to call a Petronella Turn?
I feel kind of stuck in perpetuating the use of the term "Petronella". I'll
use it in the walkthrough because that
orients the experienced dancers immediately and than call "spin" or
"twirl" and probably keep calling
"make a ring and balance now" longer than than I call the twirl.) I think
it's courteous to the newer dancers to
identify how the figure is commonly called so they'll have a chance of knowing it the
next time somebody else calls it, but it certainly is just about the most undescriptive
name possible.
Scottish dancing also has a "Petronella turn" - not surprisingly, since the
chestnut contra seems to derive from something published in Edinburgh by Gow in, uh, 1820
or something - but it is different in detail from the contra one. (And in the Scottish
dance, the actives only do the Petronella move first, then balance (pas-de-basque) in
place.) Dudley Laufman wrote some time back that the chestnut contra had the same thing
as the Scottish - just the actives traveling - until somebody imported the all-in-and-out
all-travel-twirling from an English trad dance called Roxburgh Castle (which uses a rant
step, incidentally). So the whole BTR-Petronella-turn thing is completely a 20th-century
invention in contra dancing. [Not that this is directly responsive to the original
question; I just think it's interesting.]
-- Alan
On 11/23/2012 1:30 PM, Rich Goss wrote:
I never use the term Petronella for that move.
It's always "spin to the right" or twirl to the right" For me.
Petronella is the name of a Chestnut that the move comes from as most all of you know.
Callers used to say "as in the dance Peronella..." but through the evolutionary
process is no longer mentioned. The move has taken on the name of the dance. That said,
if's my personal preference not to use that name for the move. It does bug me a
little when other callers use it as the name for the move, but not enough to say anything
or lose any sleep over it.
Rich
_______________________________________________
Callers mailing list
Callers(a)sharedweight.net
http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers
On Fri, Nov 23, 2012 at 3:10 PM, Maia McCormick
<maia.mcc(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> So I had my first introduction to contradance through my school, taught by
> student callers who had been taught by student callers before them, etc. I
> was first taught to call a Petronella as... a Petronella. And then as I
> started going to more outside dances and started reading up on the practice
> of calling, I heard the move more and more just called as "balance the ring
> and spin to the right" or "balance the ring and spin to swap."
>
> So, esteemed caller-folk, I ask you: how do* you* call a Petronella Turn?
> By name, or with some other turn of phrase? Do you have any sense how
> widespread either of these conventions are? Why not just call a Petronella
> a Petronella? If you call it by description rather than by name, do you
> generally put the entire call together (e.g. "BALance the RING and SPIN to
> the RIGHT") or break it up ("BALance the RING... and SPIN to the
RIGHT" so
> that "spin to the right" ends up coming on beats 3 & 4, just before
the
> actual spinning occurs)? Any thoughts are welcome!
>
> Cheers,
> Maia
> _______________________________________________
> Callers mailing list
> Callers(a)sharedweight.net
> http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers
_______________________________________________
Callers mailing list
Callers(a)sharedweight.net
http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers 
9:43 p.m.
I call Balance, and Spin to the right. A spin is executed with no hands held. In Contra,
we have a number of moves and flourishes in which twirl means connected by hands and
either swapping places or turning one person with the joined hand. So I think it avoids
confusion to say spin when we mean for hands to disconnect during the move. So this
applies to Rory O More spins too. Likewise, since all parties are moving the same
direction in a petronella spin, there is no swapping going on, but rather a
counter-clockwise shift around the ring. Save swap for moves where people are literally
trading places. I have heard and used both prompting patterns.
Best wishes on your calling journey.
Andrea N.
Sent from my iPhone
On Nov 23, 2012, at 3:10 PM, Maia McCormick <maia.mcc(a)gmail.com> wrote:
So I had my first introduction to contradance through
my school, taught by
student callers who had been taught by student callers before them, etc. I
was first taught to call a Petronella as... a Petronella. And then as I
started going to more outside dances and started reading up on the practice
of calling, I heard the move more and more just called as "balance the ring
and spin to the right" or "balance the ring and spin to swap."
So, esteemed caller-folk, I ask you: how do* you* call a Petronella Turn?
By name, or with some other turn of phrase? Do you have any sense how
widespread either of these conventions are? Why not just call a Petronella
a Petronella? If you call it by description rather than by name, do you
generally put the entire call together (e.g. "BALance the RING and SPIN to
the RIGHT") or break it up ("BALance the RING... and SPIN to the RIGHT"
so
that "spin to the right" ends up coming on beats 3 & 4, just before the
actual spinning occurs)? Any thoughts are welcome!
Cheers,
Maia
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6 comments
7 participants
participants (7)
-
Alan Winston -
Andrea Nettleton -
George Mercer -
Jeff Kaufman -
Maia McCormick -
Perry Shafran -
Rich Goss