1803!

This past Friday, I had an absolutely lovely happy hour at Z cucina with the sweetie and two friends of ours, specifically Felice and her husband. We, of course, spent the time talking dance and other silliness, and I am incredibly excited to have her come teach "But I already danced..." with us :D

It turns out we both just started on websites (finally!), and have decided we MUST work together more often. Like in Chillicothe...in March...in 1803. Thankfully, this is a time period I'm familiar with, so hopefully we'll be able to choose something fun to teach. The question now is how complex should we teach the steps? A lot of the turn of the 19th Century steps are quite complex and beautiful...but for beginners it can be very intimidating. How much should we err on the side of historical accuracy is now the question.

Hopefully this week we'll be able to sit down with youtube, a book stack and a delicious appetizer and work it out. Sometimes its nice living around the corner from your friends!

More dancing in Ohio!

Howdy all!

In the last three or four months...things have become a little more hectic and productive at the same time. Which, to be fair, always happens it seems. The new dance group at OHS did FANTASTIC! I am beyond proud of everyone who participated and am really excited about our next projects together. I'm pretty sure that we were one of the most popular attractions at Halloween, and we kept the Seminary PACKED for Dickens. Go us!

Now on to the next fun projects....monthly dance classes at the Grandview Public Library, 1930's classes for the Speakeasy, maybe some fun 1860's balls at the German Village Society...and me finally tackling a website for the first time since 2002. Help?

Anyway -- for those of you in the Columbus area, I'm starting a new class over at the library. I'm calling it 'But I already Danced all the Dances I know' - and it is an informal dance class that will be held once a month. I decided to open this class series up as an opportunity for everyone to come together and learn dances from the early Renaissance all the way through the Civil War in a safe, fun, and non-stressful environment. I can't WAIT to get started. If you're not on my email list and would like to - drop me a note and I'll get you the information!

Yay Dance!!

Regency Dance!

I absolutely love when I get an opportunity to learn new things - especially when that new thing is a pile of new dances from a time period I don't know as much about. In this case, I have been lucky enough to be invited to perform with Past Tyme Dancers here in Columbus. Last night was the first evening of rehearsal for the City of Dublin's Bicentennial Celebration. In honor of that, we will be performing a series of dances from the Regency period.

The Regency Era, when applied to broader, non-UK sources, can be stretched to approximately 1790 - 1820. This is a period of dance history with some of the most complex steps and trace patterns (which is reflected in the clothing - cut high up to show off the footwork and well-turned calves). I've done a little bit in this time frame, but most of my experience has been with dances just before or just after. I'm extremely excited about learning more about it.

Last night, we covered quite a few new dances, and one or two I already knew. We opened with The Duke of Kent's Waltz, which luckily I was familiar with. Here is a short video of the dance - it is really an enjoyable, relatively simple piece:



Notice how one couple moves up the dance, and the other moves down - that is a hallmark of later English Country Dance called progression. In earlier dances, many times you had a position within the dance and you stayed there. In this time period (and earlier - they were very popular in the mid 18th Century) this progression style is very common. It made for learning a dance you were unfamiliar with quite easy - you could stand at the bottom of the line and work your way to the top!

The other dance that stood out for me last night was Mr. Beveridge's Maggot. Before I go any farther, I should explain that the word 'maggot' previously didn't mean a wriggling little bug - it meant a fancy or an eccentric idea. There are a lot of dances from the 18th - 19th Century named someone's Maggot - and I was quite confused until I thought to go look up the word.

This is actually quite a famous dance. Almost every film or television production of any of Jane Austen's works includes a performance of this piece. For our production, we are going to be doing the BBC Pride and Prejudice Choreography. Here's a look at it:



I cannot tell you how excited I am to have this dance in my repertoire! It was so much fun to learn!