[Bg-dance] First Italian practice

[Tim McDaniel]

I went to the first Italian practice at College Station.

US 290 - TX 21 - TX 47 - FM 60 - Agronomy is a very convenient route,
as TX 47 merges into the roads at both ends, and Agronomy is the
second light (turn left) on FM 60.  You can get to TX 47 from the
northerly US 79 route pretty conveniently too, I believe.

I don't yet have a good way to know that I'm at the right building.
It's like the 15th building on the right, most of them undistinguished
one-story or two-story business-park-looking buildings.  I had gone to
the building's Web page, http://gscomplex.tamu.edu/?pageid=8 and hit
the browser's refresh button to cycle thru the pictures, so I was able
to recognize the entranceway.  There are signs, but the text is not
huge.

You pay for parking at a pillar south of the building.  3 hours is
$1.50, over that is $2, so you have to decide in advance how long
you're expecting to stay (or maybe donate 50 cents to TAMU).  There
were college police around when I got there.  I'm told that they
frequently stop there to use the restrooms.

People were at the southeast door; someone inside has to go to the
door to let you in.

There was some futzing about at first: people arriving a bit late,
getting dressed in medieval clothing, whatever.  Perronnelle started
us with various stretching exercises.

For 6 (well, 6:20ish) to 7, we did Amoroso, one of the simpler 15th C
Italian dances.

7 to 9, we learned 4/7 of Bella Gioioso.  That was a one-hour class at
Terpsichore last year.  In our defence, I should note that
- few knew the names of any steps.  It's like starting English country
   with Goddesses when you've never heard the word "double" before.
- Perronnelle did background stuff, like different ways to do steps
   (the right way, the common SCA way, the easy way when you're going
   fast, or whatever).  We also practiced the steps extensively.
- She stopped at one point to explain a questionable text,
   and we tried several reconstructions, settling on one method.
   It's one thing to practice with moving chess pawns; quite another if
   you have people willing to try several methods.  Especially because
   this is some form of hay.
- Partly at my request, we did several extra iterations of the parts.
   I was hoping we could tamp it firmly in our minds, given that the
   next attack on it won't be for another month.

I was happy that the kids were getting pretty wiped after 3 hours.

On the other hand, when I came out from changing to modern clothes, I
found that they'd done a simple English country dance as a no-brainer
palate cleanser ... Whirlygig.  I looked mournful at missing it, so
they offered to do it again to let me dance.  This time, the only
woman in the set was Mistress Kaitlyn, who was dancing in the #1 man's
position.  I was dancing with a nice bearded lady.  It *was* nice to
just go into it without a walkthru, or explanation, or much calling.

We and they do do Whirlygig a la Stargate.  The only differences that
I noticed:

- a flourish: when they do the long cast (not cast to star), the posts
   meet at the bottom, touch palms, then do small casts to their post
   positions, as a flourish and to allow more room for the other two
   couples to pass between.

- when they do the s-hays, the "turn to your left, offer your right",
   the two people doing the handed turn rotate around their common
   center.  In Bryn Gwlad, often the receiving person acts as a post,
   with the incoming #2 person revolving around them.

- when they put in their right hands for the right-hand star, often
   they put fists in the center with the "gig 'em" hand gesture.

Danielis Lincolnia
-- 
Tim McDaniel, tmcd at panix.com