Regarding forwards, backwards, proper, improper, and modern names...
First there was Proper, all men on one side, all women on the other.
Then Hands Four, or Hands Six and the Minor Set
Then there was Improper, where the ones cross over: now the man has
his partner in his left hand, woman has her partner in her right hand.
Then there was Becket, where the woman is still to the right of her
partner, man to his left
And Becket dances went both ways, most commonly couples progress to the
left, but some -- 15 or 20 percent? -- to the right. Some of us work to
set dancers up with a direction of progression by encouraging them to
get into Becket formation by doing a quarter circle in the direction of
progression, but (I think) it really doesn't matter: get in Becket
formation and start the walk through. Occasionally there'll be a dancer
who "knows how these things are supposed to work" and try to "progress
the right way," but usually, it just doesn't make a big difference.
Then some of us made up dances where the Twos had to change sides,
starting in circles where the Man's partner is to his left, the woman's
to her right. I made up a dance like this in the 90s called "Waiting
for the Passport," and called this formation "Reverse Improper." Some
people have dubbed this "Indecent." For some reason, that name has
never appealed to me, but, perhaps, it's becoming the standard, so I
better learn to love it...
Now there is the "Backwards Becket." And having not called any dances
in this formation, I trust it's:
Man to the right of his partner, Woman to the left of her partner,
but can still progress left or right? Do I understand this correctly?
I'd love it if someone sent me the "Weeks on the Road" dance in both its
original and its folk processed versions.
Waiting for the Passport
REVERSE Improper (or, in Improper position, REVERSE progression)
Erik Hoffman
Start in a wave, Neighbor in Left Hand, Men in Center:
A1 Balance the wave, Men pull by (with Right); Swing Partner
A2 Men Allemande Left 1½; Half Hey, start passing Neighbor's Rt shoulder
B1 BAL & Sw Nbr
B2 Pass Thru to an Ocean Wave (4) Balance (4); Current Neighbor
Allemand Right ¾ (4) (to progress)
(now momentarily in long wave at the side, meeting New Neighbor)
Allemande New Neighbor Right ¾ (4) to put the Men in the center
of a (new) wave (across) to start again
--- Initial position: twos cross over (!!), then Allemande Left Neighbor
until the Mn are in the center of a wave. We start from here.
--- Initial position: or think of it as a reverse progression. If the
ones cross over, have everyone allemande their neighbor by the left
until the men can form the wave. This will cause the ones to now
progress up the set while the twos progress down...
~erik hoffman
oakland, ca
On 9/19/2013 1:02 PM, tavi merrill wrote:
A quick thought on "backwards becket", which is the starting formation of
one of my dances as well - i tend to think of it as "becket indecent"
since that regularizes the term with other formation terms, implying lady
on the gent's left. The basic list of course - proper, improper, indecent,
improper-progressed, becket, becket-right (or CCW)... and then our friendly
distant outlier, the backwards becket.
I'd theorize one reason Bill's dance "Weeks on the Road" folk-processed to
start in normal becket is that "backwards becket" isn't a widely recognized
formation.
I run into the issue that - because becket-CCW dances are much less common
than becket-CW (though more common now thanks to some great dances from
Cary Ravitz and Heather Carmichael to name a couple) dancers zone out as
soon as i say "circle one place to the..." [AUTOPILOT kicks in, dancers
assume left]. Have found a variety of strategies to combat this, such as
circling them to the left three places, or spelling R-i-g-h-t so there's no
chance they, by some trick of perception, hear "left".
Bringing these points up because a) i believe that formations, like certain
moves, suffer from lack of use when general unfamiliarity on the dancers'
part creates situations where dancers go on autopilot and b) while callers
share common and frequently-used strategies for setting up / teaching /
introducing the more standard moves and formations, there's a less uniform
vocabulary and/or lack of shared strategies for the outliers...
just a thought, from someone who likes anti-becket (oh, crap, there's
ANOTHER way of saying becket-right) and reversed (or "mirrored") courtesy
turns (see what i'm saying about vocabulary?) and such... which are in no
wise more difficult than their normative counterparts, but confuse dancers
who don't encounter them often.
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