26 Jun
2015
26 Jun
'15
9:21 a.m.
Are you asking about grapevine step? A twisting step, where you alternate the right foot
going in front of and behind the left as you walk sideways. It’s how circles (of 4 or 8)
are done in modern western square dancing, and in the last several years increasingly
seen, to the dismay of all right-thinking people, on contra dance floors.
Read Weaver
Jamaica Plain, MA
http://lcfd.org
On Jun 26, 2015, at 9:01 AM, Rich Sbardella
<richsbardella(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Read,
I did not understand your reference to grapevining in MWSD. Can you elaborate?
Rich
On Fri, Jun 26, 2015 at 8:50 AM, Read Weaver via Callers
<callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net <mailto:callers@lists.sharedweight.net>>
wrote:
In my separate beginners’ workshops, I have people take allemande hold, and then move
around as fast as they comfortably can (“faster than you ever would in a dance”), paying
attention to what that feels like in their hands and arms. I then have them do it again,
starting fast and then slowing down a lot (slower than in a dance), keeping that same
feeling in their hands/arms. Then I’ll have them do a 2-hand turn with that same feeling
(my workshops most often combine contra & English), and then a circle of 4. I talk
about the circle 4 being the most boring move in contra when it’s done without weight, and
pointing out that it has quite a nice feeling when everyone is giving weight. (That’s also
where I explain grapevining—why it’s done in MWSD (giving weight isn’t part of their
style, so grapevine makes it a more interesting figure), and why it’s a bad thing to do in
contra (because it makes it so much harder to give weight).)
Giving weight is the first thing I teach in a beginners’ session, partly to emphasize how
important it is, and partly because it gives me the opportunity to point out everywhere
else where you do it, including just a little like in a courtesy turn.
Read Weaver
Jamaica Plain, MA
http://lcfd.org <http://lcfd.org/>
> On 6/24/2015 11:29 AM, Rich Sbardella via Callers wrote:
>>
>> How do you descibe giving weight, and how do you teach it for circles,
>> allemandes, and, swings?
>> Rich
>> Stafford, CT
26 Jun
26 Jun
2:44 p.m.
New subject: Giving Weight
Interesting. I've never seen the grapevine step done in square dancing, but
I come from the International Folk Dancing tradition, where we learned a
lot of Israeli dances that had the grapevine step. We carried it into other
dances because it was fun. I danced with a whole bunch of hippies back in
the 70s and they exaggerated ALL the steps, and that one had us flying
around the circles, our legs making giant arcs in the air.
When I first started contra dancing I did the grapevine step out of habit.
I quit when I realized I was the only one doing it.
-Amy
Seattle now, Deming then.
On Jun 26, 2015, at 6:21 AM, Read Weaver via Callers <
callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Are you asking about grapevine step? A twisting step, where you alternate
the right foot going in front of and behind the left as you walk sideways.
It’s how circles (of 4 or 8) are done in modern western square dancing, and
in the last several years increasingly seen, to the dismay of all
right-thinking people, on contra dance floors.
Read Weaver
Jamaica Plain, MA
http://lcfd.org
On Jun 26, 2015, at 9:01 AM, Rich Sbardella <richsbardella(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Read,
I did not understand your reference to grapevining in MWSD. Can you
elaborate?
Rich
On Fri, Jun 26, 2015 at 8:50 AM, Read Weaver via Callers <
callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
In my separate beginners’ workshops, I have people
take allemande hold,
and then move around as fast as they comfortably can (“faster than you ever
would in a dance”), paying attention to what that feels like in their hands
and arms. I then have them do it again, starting fast and then slowing down
a lot (slower than in a dance), keeping that same feeling in their
hands/arms. Then I’ll have them do a 2-hand turn with that same feeling (my
workshops most often combine contra & English), and then a circle of 4. I
talk about the circle 4 being the most boring move in contra when it’s done
without weight, and pointing out that it has quite a nice feeling when
everyone is giving weight. (That’s also where I explain grapevining—why
it’s done in MWSD (giving weight isn’t part of their style, so grapevine
makes it a more interesting figure), and why it’s a bad thing to do in
contra (because it makes it so much harder to give weight).)
Giving weight is the first thing I teach in a beginners’ session, partly
to emphasize how important it is, and partly because it gives me the
opportunity to point out everywhere else where you do it, including just a
little like in a courtesy turn.
Read Weaver
Jamaica Plain, MA
http://lcfd.org
> On 6/24/2015 11:29 AM, Rich Sbardella via Callers wrote:
>>
>> How do you descibe giving weight, and how do you teach it for circles,
>> allemandes, and, swings?
>> Rich
>> Stafford, CT
_______________________________________________
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Callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/callers-sharedweight.net
6:18 p.m.
New subject: Giving Weight
Rich Sbardella wrote (responding to a message from Read Weaver):
Read,
I did not understand your reference to grapevining in MWSD. Can you elaborate?
Rich
Read replied:
Are you asking about grapevine step? A twisting step,
where you alternate the right foot going in front of and behind the left as you walk
sideways. It’s how circles (of 4 or 8) are done in modern western square dancing, and in
the last several years increasingly seen, to the dismay of all right-thinking people, on
contra dance floors
and Amy Wimmer wrote:
Interesting. I've never seen the grapevine step
done in square dancing, but ...
Using the grapevine step for circles is *extremely* common in MWSD,
to the point where I presume some MWSDers consider it de rigueur.
I just now typed
singing square dance
into the youtube.com search box. (I included "singing" because
MWSD singing squares often have a circle as the first move of the
opening chorus.) Out of the first ten hits, five are of videos
of MWSD:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laRjhbX3GBs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxwpR8iKmUs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBe_fBmURcI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoOz1OFK0XE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7fAyxudyuM
The first four of these begin with circling. In the fifth, the
dancers only circle briefly around 2:58 and 4:32. In all cases
you can see some (and in some cases all or nearly all) of the
dancers using grapevine steps. Often men and women will dance
two beats out of sync (M crossing R foot behind L while W cross
R in front of L, and vice versa) so that dancers alternately
turn to face partners and corners.
Like Read, I dislike seeing grapevine steps for circles in
contras, or in traditional squares for that matter.
At the Northwest Folklife Festival last month, one of the
dances had an unusual and tightly-timed sequence that included
a circle. The guy who was progressing ahead of me along the
set did the circles with a grapevine step (or something similar)
and made almost every new neighbor reach me several beats late,
so that we sometimes skipped a figure to catch up to the music.
It was the very sort of situation for which Tod Whittemore
invented the term "rock in the stream" (discussed on this list
on 14-Aug-2014 under the Subject line "Is there a name for this
role?").
On a different occasion a couple years ago, I was at an
old-time square dance doing a visiting couple dance. An
approaching couple were long-time dancers with whom I might
expect to do the sort of beautiful circle that stays round by
virtue of its motion. (Think about how the loop of rope in
this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGnCBcZzmRI
stays round without the aid of spray starch). Alas it was
not to be. My partner was all a-bippin' an' a-boppin' and
hip-wigglin' an' grape-vinin' and had no idea what she was
missing.
--Jim
6:08 p.m.
New subject: Giving Weight
On 6/26/2015 6:21 AM, Read Weaver via Callers wrote:
Are you asking about grapevine step? A twisting step,
where you
alternate the right foot going in front of and behind the left as you
walk sideways. It’s how circles (of 4 or 8) are done in modern western
square dancing, and in the last several years increasingly seen, to
the dismay of all right-thinking people, on contra dance floors.
I used to see lots
of grapevine step in circle of four on the contra
dance floor when I started contradancing in the SF Bay Area in the
1980s. I haven't seen very much of it in the last ten years, so
interested it's making a comeback where Read can see it (presumably
Boston area).
What I have seen more lately is in big circles (like circle mixers or
contra-set-turns-into-an-oval) and some people flip back and forth to
face the people on either side of them alternately, which I read as
being more about the upper body than the feet. (I don't like it that
much; it can leave me in the position where the people on either side of
me are trying to face me at the same time and away from me at the same
time and I can't play with one without snubbing the other.)
--Alan
3221
days inactive
3221
days old
contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net
3 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
-
Amy Wimmer via Callers -
James Saxe via Callers
-
Read Weaver via Callers
-
Winston, Alan P. via Callers