On Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 5:52 AM, John Sweeney <i...@contrafusion.co.uk> wrote: > > Whereas dosido has been standardised in the contra community, I don't believe > seesaw has, so I would always specify which one I mean.
At contra dances I've only heard seesaw to mean a left shoulder dosido. Is anyone here calling it to mean something else at contras? > When you say "Shadow swing" you haven't yet established who the > shadow is. I guess you mean the person beside you in the long lines, but it > depends on the dance; your shadow could be some distance away. Again, I > would suggest you specify who you mean. It's a becket dance, so the neighbor dosido is across the set, the partner seesaw is along the set, and you're left back where you started. You're then only next to one other person, your shadow, so I think "shadow swing" is clear enough for the written form of the dance. In teaching you'd use more words if appropriate for the crowd. (Though I don't like shadow swings very much, and a 16 count shadow swing is really a lot. With shadows you can get really awkward pairings, and you're stuck with them for the whole dance.) > Balance and Petronella: I guess you mean Balance the Ring and > Petronella. The original dance from which the Petronella move was taken > didn't have hands joined in a ring - see > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TamzPchX--I So unless you say it is a > ring/circle readers might assume you are using the original move and not > join hands. In contra all balances are with joined hands. It's still useful to say "balance the ring" so people know whose hands to take, but "balance and petronella" is clear on its own in the sense that if a caller said it during a no-walkthrough the dancers would do the right thing. Jeff
