[Ansteorra] iso european dancers ??

[Charlene Charette]

On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 1:30 PM, Jeffrey Clark <jmclark85 at gmail.com> wrote:

> The group dances require... well... a group, but there were many dances in late period that were just for two dancers (and they weren't even lord/lady pairs). We don't have many surviving choreographies form them, but those dances tended to be one-off things anyway and you would have a dancing mater create a new choreography for the next event. I also haven't seen much in the way of improvisation in dance, another thing that was common at that point in time. The court dances are what evolved into ballet, and there is a lot of untapped technique and opportunity to be found in them.
>


Yes, there was improvisation in European dance. Past experience has
taught me that dance students in Ansteorra want to be told what steps
to do when; they get very uncomfortable with the improvised stuff. I
think that may in part be because the improvisational steps tend to be
the more difficult steps. Most people like to learn dances, not
dancing, because learning the fancier steps takes a time commitment.
Which is fine; everyone has their own level of interest. If the
dancers are moving in the right direction, at the right time, and not
throwing off the rest of the set, I'm not too concerned with what
their feet are doing.


--Perronnelle