26 Jun
2015
26 Jun
'15
10:08 p.m.
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