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Thursday dancing

Submitted by Katherina Weyssin on March 20, 2014 - 9:18pm

Open hour: 

  • Old Almain
  • Black Almain
  • Madam Cecilia's Pavin
  • Rostiboli Gioioso
  • Ly Bens Distonys
  • Danse de la Haye / Hay Branle - for four

After refreshing the basic choreography for Rostiboli, we spent some time on ornament:

  • ombreggiare: shading - accompanying a foot with the same side of the body
  • ondeggiare: waving - the slow rise and fast fall with each step
  • diversita di cosa: varying things - making pairs of riprese dissimilar
  • varied floor patterns: using the space in different ways, varying the structure (e.g. man departs twice)
  • turning the man under the woman's arm
  • contrapasso: subsituting 3 contrapassi for 2 doubles

We spent quite a while practicing contrapassi: using the music for the bassadanza section of Rostiboli, dancing alone, and alternating between a pair of doppii and three contrapassi.

Participating: Katherina Weyssin, William de Cameron, William de Wyke, Katherine of Glastonbury, Vettoria, Anna de Wilde, Ian, Elena

Advanced hour:

Anna and Katherina took a few minutes at the start to begin rehearsals for the 17thC Masque Cupid and Death, and in particular the Host's Entrance (a solo for Anna). Then:

Buffens!

We continued to work on just the three cuts passage and thrust passage, this time with things in our hands. We're still looking for suitable wooden swords, so we used dowel, and a motley assortment of bucklers.

Combining footwork and blows for the three cuts passage continues to be much trickier with real swords.

Some drills we found useful:

  • perform the passage in a line in front of the mirror, against imaginary opponents, to begin to make the movements of our swords more similar
  • drill in pairs, with only one person moving their feet; the one moving hands only can cue the other

Participating: Katherina W, William de Cameron, Vettoria, Katherine of Glastonbury, Anna

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