Re: Dances with R & L Thru

Eric: In the Monadnock Region we always did R&L w/o hands. May have come from the breakaway from English influence...Look Ma, no hands? Louis Pasquerelli was a paving cutter and barber in Keene, and the best dancer in the region. When he was inactive, on the R&L he would dance across with whoever the active man was, then he would stand there in place while the others passed through, then he would have the whole middle to himself, and he would step he way across to his new place. The French in their quadrilles do it thus: (Pas de dames, pas de hommes) (not sure that’s correct?) no progression in the quadrille,...the two ladies cross over quickly then the two men change places, and they return the same way. Fun to do. Dudley Dudley Laufman PO Box 61, 322 Shaker Rd Canterbury, NH 03224 www.laufman.org 603-783-4719 dlaufman(a)comcast.net From: mailto:trad-dance-callers@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2015 12:31 PM To: trad-dance-callers(a)yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [trad-dance-callers] Re: Dances with R & L Thru I grew up with the no-hands Right & Left Thru (R&L-T), too. Our main local caller in Santa Barbara, CA (my home town) was New England transplant, David Woodsfellow. He taught, and we danced, the no hands version. And, I've noticed, as Sylvia M. points out, as with many things in the dance, from the woman's side, the with hands R&L-T is more of a challenge, since the pull-by for the person on the right tends to turn them away from the person next to them. Actually, I'm sure most, if not all, of us know this. (Many things, because I've noticed other places where the woman's part is more challenging than the man's part.) When I started dancing, in 1980, I was told/taught that the no-hands/with-hands R&L-T was regional. But I have a different theory, which, perhaps, Dudley--or others with greater historical knowledge--can shed light on. Back then David W. called a lot of the old traditional dances with same-sex R&L-Ts. When doing a R&L-T with someone of the same sex, we never did a courtesy turn, we'd do a "wheel-around" something akin to the Butterfly Whirl. Thus the R&L-T was a pass through, put your arm around the same-sex neighbor's back, and spin around half way (or one-and-a-half, or two-and-a-half...). When doing this sort of wheel-around, it's not a "right-then-left" figure, so it helped a lot not holding a hand. Still a pull by, let go, wheel-around worked, but it was a bit easier without the hands. Even though I love the modern contras, I loved and now miss those dances. ~erik hoffman oakland, ca On 11/28/2015 11:21 AM, Sylvia Miskoe sylviasmiskoe(a)gmail.com [trad-dance-callers] wrote: I grew up with the NO HANDS for RLT. I've experimented with hands a few times and find that if I give a right hand, my path changes slightly and I'm pulled to the right. If I don't give a hand my path stays straight and I easily turn left for the courtesy turn. Sylvia Miskoe, concord, NH On Sat, Nov 28, 2015 at 11:43 AM, Tony Parkes tony(a)hands4.com [trad-dance-callers] <trad-dance-callers(a)yahoogroups.com> wrote: I second the mention of Gene Hubert’s The Turning Point; it’s one of my favorite modern contras. How about Ted Sannella’s Yankee Reel? I use it as a first exposure to Right and Left Thru (RLT). It ends with Half Promenade and RLT; I explain Half Promenade and then tell the dancers that RLT is a lot like it, except that they’ll “melt” through the opposite couple instead of steering completely around them. They seem to get the courtesy turn better if they’ve just done the same thing at the end of the promenade. Of the 20 or 30 basic moves that occur in most traditional squares and contras, I think RLT is the hardest one for new dancers to comprehend. It’s a compound move: you go straight and then you turn, and you turn in a way you couldn’t have predicted. The most common error, in my experience, is for dancers to do a right-face solo turn after the cross. This is true whether or not they give right hands on the cross. In areas where giving right hands is the norm, it’s important to tell them to let go quickly and not let the handhold force them into turning alone. After 50+ years of teaching, I still haven’t decided whether it’s better to introduce RLT before or after Ladies Chain. Tony Parkes Billerica, Mass.