[Callers] [Organizers] contra dance gypsy

[Alan J Rosenthal]

>There's a dance called Black Nag (Playford 1670).  Should we avoid this
>in case people think it refers to a nagging black woman?

I don't see why.  Doesn't that obviously refer to a horse?  Is anyone
actually expressing concern about that name?  (Besides the fact that any
one dance name is heard much less often than the name of a dance figure.)

While the dance term "gip" or "whole-gip" of old seems quite possibly
not to have had anything to do with the term "Gypsy" in those days, I
think that its change to "Gypsy" was a confluence with the racial term,
and I think that it's perceived as a racial term in modern times.

regards,
Alan Rosenthal, dancing in and around Toronto, Canada.