Gypsy Across (see notes)                  (4)       Turn Single (W 1x; M 3/4 See notes)   (4)

A-1  Promenade single file 3/4                  (8)       Neighbor Swing                                      (8)

B-1  Hey Halfway (men pass left, partner right, women left, neighbor right                     (8)
         Men allemande left once and a half           (8)

B-2  Partner Balance and Swing (or gypsy and swing if you are so inclined)              (16)

Notes: Mary Kay Friday was one of the nicest, kindest and all around best people I ever met in the world of traditional dance, or anywhere else for that matter.  Her death in 2001 stunned the traditional music and dance community, and filled the church on the grounds of the Washington Cathedral with shape note singers and dancers and family and friends.

Shortly afterward, I had the notion that I wanted to make up a dance for her.  Tom Hinds had already made up “The Other Mary Kay’s Reel” but I thought there was room for one more dance for Mary Kay.

The last dance I remembered dancing with her was Fast Living by David Kirchner – a very fine four-facing-four dance.  That become a sort of starting point for me – the dance should be four facing four.  And it should have an English (as in English country dance) accent, since Mary Kay was one of the very best leaders of accessible ECD who I ever have known.

At some point along the way, I found out that Mary Kay had a personalized license plate on her car. It said: “TGIF.”

OK, so that had to be the title of this dance.

I thought about it a lot, and even tried to recruit some eminent dance choreographers to help me out.  But it just didn’t seem to be happening.

But this year – ten years after Mary Kay’s death – I came up with this little sequence that I thought might work as the start of the dance.  I asked Bob Isaacs to help me out with the second half of the dance and he suggested something that only appeared in one other dance he knew of – Fast Living.  Well. It’s fate, I thought.

So the dance came together – but it was flawed.  The men’s allemande turns changed from one time through to the next – first once and quarter, then three quarters.  It was a difficult progression. 

For skillful dancers, it worked and was enjoyable, but it was very challenging.  The second time I called it, at the Sunday Night Dance in Glen Echo, Maryland, I was watching couples at the end of the lines while they were “out” do the dance as a two-couple dance – just like a contra in Becket formation. Ann Fallon was in one group of four that was going through the dance when it became clear to me – this isn’t a four facing four dance – it’s better as a plain old duple, contra in Becket formation.

And so it is.

It’s flirty, as one dancer said to me.  It’s fun. It has an English accent.  It goes well with music that’s a little funky and maybe bluesy and cool in a hot and sultry sort of way.  Or if the band can play tunes from from the ECD repertoire, well that will work nicely too. I am confident Mary Kay would have enjoyed it.

TGIF. 

Now the technical stuff:

Gypsy across: Change places with the neighbor you are facing in four beats of music. Move directly toward  each other then turn halfway clockwise to pass and step back. It is a “Hole in the Wall” cross, only faster. 

There is a tendency, when dancers to the “forward on the left diagonal (slice left, per Becky Hill)  and fall back – for the dances to move back fairly far. That will make the “gypsy across” more difficult and through the timing off for the next part of the sequence.  Encourage the dancers to fall back four “teeny tiny” steps so they have less separation and distance to travel to change places in four steps.

Turn Single, but it’s not really a turn single because men and women turn different amounts: The turn here is also clockwise (right shoulder moves back, left shoulder moves forward). Women turn all the way around in four steps.  Men turn only three quarters.  Women end facing across the set – looking at neighbor’s right shoulder. Men face up or down the set, looking at partner’s right shoulder.

This is unfamiliar to many contra dancers. The key to success (getting turned in four steps) is to be sure you are turning with the *first* step. It should be off to the right – not forward, so that the turn is completed by step no. 4.

Overall – a demonstration of the “gypsy across, whirl away, promenade and swing sequence will be very helpful. You can also remind dancers that all the turns are to the right. If folks like to gypsy and swing with partners – hey let it be up to them.  It provides a little more of an “English accent” for the dance, but I prefer and balance and swing myself.