X Years Ago Today
Feb. 10th, 2009 11:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sorcyressOne year ago today, it was 2008, and I went to my first ever real regency dance event.
(I use the qualifier real since I think I had been to at least one event before, at a con or something. Also, I mean, I had been doing SCD for a whole two months at that point. I totally knew how to do Regency.)
It was...exciting, and scary, and I spent an obscene amount of time beforehand stressing out about clothes, because I do that a lot in this hobby. But I pretty much had fun, and did not do too terribly, and got to have my hair done up (which is actually the second most boring thing in the world, after having skirts hemmed) which at least looked nice, and yeah.
The real reason I mention this (rather than going into (more) detail on the four years ago today thing mentioned in smalltext at the bottom of this post) is because Sunday, I went to the same event.
Which was exciting, and really not scary at all (except when my mind froze on the whole "hey, if you are being a guy, you have to do something impressive and dancey in the middle of the set with everyone staring at you" and I promptly forgot every dance thing I have ever learned ever. Yeah, that sucked hard.)
Oh, and I spent an obscene amount of time beforehand stressing out about clothes. I probably should've just said "fuck period" and gone in my tailcoat and black pants or something, because, I mean, I pretty much danced exclusively the guys part anyways. And yes, Gabriel, I remembered a bra. :P
(Er, my Gabe, what lives in my head, not Gabeity-Gabe, who lives in...Louisiana? Down south somewhere.)
ANDYES!
Ignoring the freezing up at people staring hardcore at me, I am pretty damn rad at Regency, if I do say so myself. I can do the steps pretty well, and between last weeks going to NYC to class, and this weeks tea dance, I actually have the proper...um...thingummy that you do at the end of skipchanges to look all elegant and stop moving. (I can say it, but if I try to spell it, every French speaker I know will spontaneously catch on fire in pure annoyance. Stupid French.)
And the figures? Shit man, they're just figures. Figures are largely really really easy. The few that aren't are generally either pousettes (which I tend to hate, because I'm awful at them) or really really really fun and just need some practise before I can do them. (See: Australian Ladies, which is zohmgods the best dance ever besides maybe 1314.)
ANDYES! [/Sorcy being a dancedork]
~Sor
MOOP!
(((Also, four years ago today it was 2005, and my least favourite line was used on me for the first time -- "Am I hurting you?"
Just...yes. If you have to ask that, if you have to apologize for messing with my emotions, if you have to worry that you are hurting me, you very probably are. I'm sorry. And it hurts a lot more knowing that you're a Good and Decent human being who cares about me, even (especially?) if you don't Care about me. If you're going to hurt me, don't be sweet about it. Make me hate you, so I can shrug the pain off.
And yet, I still don't think that will stop the occasional use of this phrase. That's okay, really, I appreciate that you lot care about me. But jesus, is that line a slap in the face sometimes.)))
(I use the qualifier real since I think I had been to at least one event before, at a con or something. Also, I mean, I had been doing SCD for a whole two months at that point. I totally knew how to do Regency.)
It was...exciting, and scary, and I spent an obscene amount of time beforehand stressing out about clothes, because I do that a lot in this hobby. But I pretty much had fun, and did not do too terribly, and got to have my hair done up (which is actually the second most boring thing in the world, after having skirts hemmed) which at least looked nice, and yeah.
The real reason I mention this (rather than going into (more) detail on the four years ago today thing mentioned in smalltext at the bottom of this post) is because Sunday, I went to the same event.
Which was exciting, and really not scary at all (except when my mind froze on the whole "hey, if you are being a guy, you have to do something impressive and dancey in the middle of the set with everyone staring at you" and I promptly forgot every dance thing I have ever learned ever. Yeah, that sucked hard.)
Oh, and I spent an obscene amount of time beforehand stressing out about clothes. I probably should've just said "fuck period" and gone in my tailcoat and black pants or something, because, I mean, I pretty much danced exclusively the guys part anyways. And yes, Gabriel, I remembered a bra. :P
(Er, my Gabe, what lives in my head, not Gabeity-Gabe, who lives in...Louisiana? Down south somewhere.)
ANDYES!
Ignoring the freezing up at people staring hardcore at me, I am pretty damn rad at Regency, if I do say so myself. I can do the steps pretty well, and between last weeks going to NYC to class, and this weeks tea dance, I actually have the proper...um...thingummy that you do at the end of skipchanges to look all elegant and stop moving. (I can say it, but if I try to spell it, every French speaker I know will spontaneously catch on fire in pure annoyance. Stupid French.)
And the figures? Shit man, they're just figures. Figures are largely really really easy. The few that aren't are generally either pousettes (which I tend to hate, because I'm awful at them) or really really really fun and just need some practise before I can do them. (See: Australian Ladies, which is zohmgods the best dance ever besides maybe 1314.)
ANDYES! [/Sorcy being a dancedork]
~Sor
MOOP!
(((Also, four years ago today it was 2005, and my least favourite line was used on me for the first time -- "Am I hurting you?"
Just...yes. If you have to ask that, if you have to apologize for messing with my emotions, if you have to worry that you are hurting me, you very probably are. I'm sorry. And it hurts a lot more knowing that you're a Good and Decent human being who cares about me, even (especially?) if you don't Care about me. If you're going to hurt me, don't be sweet about it. Make me hate you, so I can shrug the pain off.
And yet, I still don't think that will stop the occasional use of this phrase. That's okay, really, I appreciate that you lot care about me. But jesus, is that line a slap in the face sometimes.)))
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no subject
on 2009-02-10 05:16 pm (UTC)Incidentally, he refers to the basic travelling steps as Chasses.
Have you learned how to do a [SCD] pousette properly? As in been taught? They kind of really suck if you're being dragged through them, but they're quite cool once you've learned and practiced them enough that you don't have to think about it.
no subject
on 2009-02-10 05:30 pm (UTC)As as for pousettes, do you know the song?
Love,
Herbert.
no subject
on 2009-02-10 06:29 pm (UTC)Mr. Wilson certainly spelled it with two ts in the early 19th century. I should have provided a link to The Complete System....
They are, indeed, ballet steps.
I know a chant for pousettes, but I'm doubtful I know the song you're referring to.
no subject
on 2009-02-10 08:48 pm (UTC)We call it a song but I guess it is more of a chant.
Love,
Herbert.
no subject
on 2009-02-10 08:57 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-02-11 12:08 am (UTC)no subject
on 2009-02-11 12:19 am (UTC)no subject
on 2009-02-10 06:28 pm (UTC)Even if you don't know how to do a poussette, if you have good firm arms and a basic grasp of pas de basque, it doesn't matter much whether you know your way around.
no subject
on 2009-02-10 06:57 pm (UTC)There is also a sideways chassé, which follows the same pattern as the forward.
The modern ECD chassé is a step-close, not a step-close-step? Interesting.
no subject
on 2009-02-11 08:08 am (UTC)Does the sideways chassé switch the leading foot, or is it more like a slipping step in SCD?
Modern ECD also has skip-change, though without the pointing and turnout used in SCD, and it's not very common, so part of the shift may just be vocabulary migration. The usual traveling step is just walking, though, with occasional skipping; skip-change is a rare alternative, probably less common than ranting.
no subject
on 2009-02-11 03:42 pm (UTC)I have never had occasion to do a sideways chassé for more than one measure. J. H. Gourdoux-Daux only describes how to do one sequence. I suspect, were it to come up, it would be like the slipping step; however for figures such as Circle Six Hands Quite Round a forward chassé is used, like in strathspey time for SCD.
no subject
on 2009-02-11 04:45 pm (UTC)It's interesting -- I had always been under the impression that SCD was unusual in being influenced by ballet, since most other modern country dance forms (ECD, contra, ceilidh) are not. I would guess that it was really more of an upper class / lower class distinction, though, with the steps coming from different places in the assorted revivals. (I doubt anyone had much turnout at a 19th century barn dance.)
no subject
on 2009-02-11 05:09 pm (UTC)My understanding (from SdG) is that the main difference between modern ECD and modern SCD is what era's dancing Mr. Sharp and Miss Milligan, respectively, looked at when creating their revivals; both being a revival of upper-class "country dance", and the dances of England and Scotland in the relevant periods being substantially similar. That is, you are substantially correct, but the "different places" are more temporal than geographic. I suspect you are correct about period barn dances, but it's also interesting to note that by the 1850s country dances and quadrilles were walked through, with an aesthetic more similar to modern ECD. Did contra go into remission before a revival, or is it a continuous history? Looking at it, one can see clearly how it descends from the early 19th century country dances and their changes in the late 19th century, and it's easy to assume that the folk process continued to give us what we have today, but I don't know if it's an unbroken tradition.
(Sorry for double...stupid HTML fail)
no subject
on 2009-02-10 08:22 pm (UTC)And thank you for the spelling. I will forget that in roughly an hour, but maybe I can go back and look it up here.
~Sor
no subject
on 2009-02-11 01:48 pm (UTC)When it's é, it's acute, and when it's è, it's grave, and ê is circumflex. The HTML entities are formed as é, è, and ê (É for uppercase).
For the questioner below me, jetté means "pretty" or "posh", while jeté means "thrown". Since we're talking dancing, I'd guess the word was jeté (as in Grand Jeté, non?).
no subject
on 2009-02-11 03:46 pm (UTC)I suspect 1820 is prior to even French spelling standardization, which might explain the spelling variety (I now see that JHG, who was French, spelled it Jeté).
In any case, jeté (throw) is certainly the correct word, so people should probably prefer that spelling today, regardless of what spelling Mr. Wilson happened to use almost two centuries ago.
no subject
on 2009-02-11 12:40 am (UTC)no subject
on 2009-02-11 01:10 am (UTC)Yes.
Like, hardcore, a million times, yes.
But not this Friday, I'll be at Dance Flurry in NY.
~Sor
no subject
on 2009-02-11 01:43 am (UTC)no subject
on 2009-02-11 01:50 am (UTC)~Sor
no subject
on 2009-02-11 01:55 am (UTC)I don't think we'll have time for fucking.
no subject
on 2009-02-11 02:12 am (UTC)Website is being slightly unhelpful --where exactly, and cost?
~Sor
no subject
on 2009-02-11 02:18 am (UTC)The cost is... something like $10, plus or minus 2. More minus than plus. Less if you're early/late to help with setup/teardown, but that doesn't seem like an option for you.
no subject
on 2009-02-11 02:21 am (UTC)no subject
on 2009-02-11 02:42 am (UTC)~Sor
no subject
on 2009-02-11 03:17 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-02-12 12:17 am (UTC)I kinda agree with you there. Having been on the ambiguity side of an ending relationship was one of the less fun things I've been involved with.
~Sor
no subject
on 2009-02-13 10:57 pm (UTC)But if you don't mind I'll save up the babble for the future. It's stupid Valentine's Day soon, and I miss Lorelei, and in fact would be much more content if after the "just friends" talk we had actually stayed friends; as opposed to her pushing me out to the distance of casual acquaintanceship, and filtering me out of the bulk of her LJ posts, including the one about being all happy about me coming over that one time.
no subject
on 2009-02-12 09:57 am (UTC)no subject
on 2009-02-12 11:16 pm (UTC)~Sor