Erik Barry Erhardt wrote:
Jonathan Sivier wrote:
I'm assuming that the Docey Doe in this dance
isn't just a dos-a-do,
but is a more complex set of movements. I know
I've done some
similar figures in the past, but is there an
explanation for this
somewhere on the web site?
One of the links in the index is to a “Docey-Doe and Visiting Couple Square.” The
instructions for the docey-doe are at the bottom of that page. Those instructions (which I
suspect are the work of Bill Litchman) include some variations and a helpful timing note
for callers.
One caveat: Where it says “The instructions… in ‘Cowboy Dances’… are not quite correct,”
it would be more accurate to say that the instructions in Shaw’s book and those on the LSF
webpage describe two related-but-different versions of the docey-doe. And I wouldn’t say,
referring to the first move, that one version is the reverse of the other; they’re just
different.
Brief descriptions: In Shaw’s book, from a circle of four, the ladies pass left shoulders
and face partner. On the webpage, from a circle of four, ladies do a rollaway with their
opposite to face partner. In both versions, continue with left hand to partner, pull by,
right hand around opposite, courtesy turn with partner.
The rollaway version seems to be more fun and also easier to teach and to understand. It’s
the version in every film or video that I’ve seen that includes a docey-doe. (I suspect
that Shaw and/or his teenage dancers came up with the rollaway version, too late for it to
be included in Cowboy Dances. The book did have a print life of more than a decade, during
which the description could conceivably have been changed; but there was a long series of
photographs illustrating the figure, and perhaps the publisher balked at reshooting
them.)
Tony Parkes
Billerica, Mass.
www.hands4.com<http://www.hands4.com>
New book! Square Dance Calling: An Old Art for a New Century
(to be published Summer 2017)