Hi, Luke (and others)!

Jeremy Korr called this on Saturday night and I danced it as a Lady/Raven with 
a partner who was not a switcher so I can comment on it as a Lady dancer but 
not from the Gents/Larks perspective.

I generally liked the dance. The flow was good and it was nice to have 
different types of transitions. The promenade=>see saw=>1/2 was a very fun 
series. From the time that Jeremy described that series to me during the break 
until the time that he called it in the 2nd half, I was very much looking 
forward to trying it out, and it was great! The A1 N Rt Sh Round to a swing 
worked well coming out of the ladies’ allemande because we had to walk a couple 
of steps to get to our next N. It was good to have fuzzy timing there rather 
than a B&Sw, otherwise we would have had to take big steps or run a bit. 

Some areas for improvement are that it felt to me like the ladies were doing a 
lot of the work with the DSD and the allemande, which are both unassisted 
figures where you’re fighting against rotational pull as opposed to a chain 
which is all forward movement with an assist from the courtesy turn. I couldn’t 
switch roles to test it but a N lady (who knew this was a test dance) 
independently said to me “the ladies are doing a lot of work”. Also, both times 
the ladies approach each other (in the A2 and the B2), they are effectively 
coming out of a swing (if we can agree that LLF&B is neutral) and walking 
towards each other with the left shoulder leading so you had to think “Is this 
the DSD? Or is this the left allemande?"

Just brainstorming here but maybe replace the ladies allem with a ladies chain 
in the B2? I know this takes away from the “new transitions” idea that you had 
but I think the “gem” of this dance is the A2 & B1 and the rest is gravy to 
support it.

Jacqui Grennan


> On Mar 1, 2019, at 7:50 AM, Gregory Frock via Callers 
> <callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
> 
> Hi Luke,
> 
> I think this is a great accessible dance. Flow is fine, and I actually feel 
> that getting too much "rightward" muscle memory is not a good thing. Symmetry 
> is better for our bodies in the long run. So FWIW, thumbs up for me. And I 
> will try it out at one of my next two gigs 3/8 or 3/13.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Greg
> 
> On Fri, Mar 1, 2019 at 10:00 AM Luke Donforth via Callers 
> <callers@lists.sharedweight.net <mailto:callers@lists.sharedweight.net>> 
> wrote:
> Hi all, 
> 
> I was thinking about standard transitions; and how similar flows could 
> possibly be created while still adding variation to our dance diet. 
> 
> Chain-> (1x or 1/2) hey -> balance and swing works well; but gyre & swing 
> doesn't work well there, because you've set up left shoulder at the end of 
> the hey.
> 
> allemande left -> (1x or 1/2) hey -> (gyre &) swing works reasonably, because 
> you've set up the other shoulder in the hey. 
> 
> What about coming into the hey from a Sea-Saw? For instance:
> 
> Contra/Improper
> 
> A1 -----------
> (16) Neighbor gyre and swing
> A2 -----------
> (8) Promenade across the Set
> (8) Ladies Sea-Saw 1.5x
> B1 -----------
> (8) 1/2 Hey, ladies passing partner right shoulders
> (8) Partner swing
> B2 -----------
> (8) Long lines, forward and back
> (8) Ladies allemande Left 1-1/2
> 
> I think that flows well, but I don't have dancers to play with at the moment. 
> If anyone more used to dancing the traditional ladies roll wants to talk 
> about muscle memory and flow, I'd appreciate it. Would the sea saw and left 
> allemande just be too outside the realm of familiar to be fun?
> 
> Assuming this is a new composition that works, I'll call it Sinister Ravens.
> 
> Thanks for your thoughts.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Luke Donforth
> luke.donfo...@gmail.com <mailto:luke.do...@gmail.com>
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