On 2018-07-10 08:18 AM, Luke Donforth via Callers wrote:

Hello all,

I've been thinking about half figure eights, and variations on them. Is anyone familiar (in ECD, contra, or other traditions), where instead of the 1s or 2s half figure eight, having the gents or ladies do the move from improper formation?

Normally, for a half figure eight (HFE), the 4 dancers start at roughly the corners of a square, and the dancers from one 'side' start by crossing through the dancers on the opposite 'side', e.g.
    twos HFE up (through the ones)
or
    (from a proper set) men HFE across (through the women)

Your variation is to have the moving dancers start from *diagonal* corners.

For dancers familiar with HFE, I think the first reaction might be: you've got your calls mixed up, the women aren't in the correct positions to do an HFE. Once you convince them that this is intended, the next question might be: should the women move as if for an HFE *across* or an HFE *along*?

As soon as you have something like the ladies do a half figure eight from duple improper; they're either going to have to shift where they land, or the gents are going to have to get out of the way. It seems to me (during my insomnia, not with actual dancers in a house party) that you could have the gents cast off and over to a ladies place. i.e.:

/Ladies half figure eight, passing left shoulder in the middle to take neighbor gents' place/

(Presumably you mean their *partner* gent's place. They *could* go to the neighbor gent's place, but then you'd want them passing *right* in the middle, and the gents casting over *right* shoulder to *neighbor*'s place, to avoid collisions.)

/Meanwhile, gents cast over left shoulder to take partner's place/

This sounds like a nice figure, but my recommendation is: don't use the phrase "half figure eight". Instead, you could say something like:

    Ladies trade places, passing left shoulder,
    then *all* cast one place counterclockwise around the set.

This has the gents wait a few beats before starting their cast, which your original didn't, but I think it's better to have all the casts synchronized. In an ECD setting, if you wanted to get fancy, you could have the gents do an on-the-spot figure while the women cross, like a set or turn single.

<aside>
Your figure reminds me of the figure "chevron" (which is mainly ECD but is infiltrating contra), the main difference being that in a chevron, the diagonal-crossers walk straight backwards into their final place rather than casting there. There are also variations re whether they back along or across, and whether the others cast in the same direction as the backing-up or the opposite direction. E.g.,
  Victor Skowronski's "Companions" has:
    diagonals back *across* + others cast *same* direction.
  Fried de Metz Herman's "Mylecharane" has:
    diagonals back *along* + others cast *opposite* direction.
I'm not sure there's a dance with back *along* + cast *same*, which would be the combination closest to your figure.
</aside>

-Michael
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