Flowers of Edinburgh - the Expanded Edition

In last week's dance analysis post, as you may remember, I wrote of the utter boringness of Flowers of Edinburgh. I found fault with the severely limited number of steps , the all-too-easy and predictable layout of the steps, and the complete impossibility of carrying on a conversation while dancing it. I also mentioned that I was experimenting with expanding on the basic theme of the dance to give it some degree of challenge, making it worthwhile as a mind puzzle if not as an opportunity for socializing. The spring of inspiration has been drained, the drawing board has been filled, the possibilities have been explored. Having done all I can for the time being, I present for your evaluation and revision, Flowers of Edinburgh - the Expanded Edition! (Note: not all of the information given in this post is absolutely necessary. However, most of it is relevant.)
 
 
Flowers of Edinburgh - the Expanded Edition
Dance formation: triple minor longways
Music: 2/4 timing, Major key
 
A1: 1st couple skip a figure eight down through the 2nd and 3rd couples
A2: 3rd couple skip a figure eight up through the 2nd and 1st couples
B1: 2nd couple heys for three with other couples, 2nd lady up and 2nd man down
B2: While all two hand turning, perform a pousette progression
 
 
 
 
The goal in rewriting this dance was to add a level of difficulty and a layer of interest to a rather insipid and insignificant dance. Having recently been made aware of the triple minor formation, I immediately selected that as the beginning point for the expansion. After all, the more people there are involved, the more people there are needing to be aware of what's going on and performing their part!
 
The beginning of this variation is fairly similar to that of the original in that both begin with figure eights. However, while the original starts with only one person at a time doing the figure eight, in this version everything is done with at least two people at a time. The first couple jumps right in to the figure eight together, crossing in the middle with the lady going first as usual. They separate; the lady passes the 3rd man by the right shoulder, goes around the back of both men, and passes the 2nd man on his left to meet her partner and cross in the middle again before completing the figure eight on the ladies' side and returning to her original place. Meanwhile, the 1st man is doing the same thing, with a few minor differences due to his coming from the opposite side.
 
In the second part of the A music, the 3rd couple skips the same type of figure eight up through the group - crossing in the middle, looping around one side, crossing again, and looping around their own side to end in place.
 
The beginning of the B music marks a slight change; the 2nd couple, rather than doing the same thing the others  have done, instead begin two separate hey for threes. These are essentially expanded figure eights themselves, and thus are entirely in keeping with the style of the original dance. As said before, the 2nd lady skips up and passes the 1st man by the left shoulder to begin her hey for three with the 1st couple; the 2nd man does likewise, moving down and passing the 3rd lady by the left to start off his hey for three with the 3rd couple. With the heys completed, everyone ends in their home place.
 
For the all-important progression, everyone will begin by taking both hands with their partner and two hand turning to the right (clockwise). The 1st and 2nd couples will change places counterclockwise, still two hand turning, moving in opposite directions (1st couple to the man's side, 2nd to the lady's) in order to avoid collisions; meanwhile, the 3rd couple may two hand turn in place. With the 2nd couple in their progressed position, they merely two hand turn in place while the 1st and 3rd couples make their exchange. This is done in a similar manner to the first, except that this time the movement will be clockwise, with the 1st couple heading to the lady's side and the 3rd moving to the man's. This entire portion will resemble the sort of pousette in the "heddle" portion of the Danish dance Weaving. As I do not know what this move is properly titled, I am calling it a pousette progression.
 
Clear as mud, no? :)
 
 
 
 
Now, with regards to the ends. This is where things get tricky, and I'm going to admit right away that I am fairly lost in this area. Having danced only one triple minor thus far, I do not have enough experience to know the following for sure, but I believe that most (if not all) triple minors have the 1s progress down only one place, not two. This means that the 2s and 3s must switch roles each round. I myself find this aspect rather difficult to keep track of, and even slightly irritating at times. Therefore, I wanted to write this version in such a way that the 2s will remain 2s and the 3s will remain 3s all the way up the set. This has been accomplished by the pousette progression. However, this arrangement does bring up another issue: what about the people who are out on the ends?
 
Supposing we start with nine couples, there will be three sets dancing for the first round. The 1s all progress down two places, leaving one 1st couple out at the bottom and a 2 and 3 out at the top. This is fine; it is to be expected. On the second round, we have two sets dancing while the three aforementioned couples are catching their breath or chatting briefly or something of that sort. All is well. The 1s progress down two places again, leaving two couples out at the bottom - but now there are four couples out at the top. Obviously, three of these couples will be able to begin dancing for the third round, but it will not be the three closest to the top. The couple that was previously the 3rd will enter as a 1st, leaving the couple at the top (formerly a 2) to wait for a second round of the music before joining in again. This is not necessarily a problem, but could potentially lead to some confusion, since the common expectation is to wait out one round before jumping right back in again. Now, then, there are two sets dancing the third round; the 1s progress down two places, sending a 1st couple to join the two former 1s at the bottom, thus completing their set, and sending a 2 and a 3 to the top to complete the set of the former 2. All three sets are now dancing the fourth round, as any mathematician (or dancer!) would expect!
 
 
 
 
 
Now, this is going to sound really odd... but... even though I've just written this modified dance... I've already thought of an embellishment. :) It occurred to me, why have the groups of two couples out at the top just stand there? If we're going to complicate things, why not go all the way? So, I wrote up a plan for what could be done if the inactive foursome is desirous of still more motion! It is essentially irrelevant to the workings of the remainder of the dance, and thus is optional - to do it or not is determined by the foursome themselves.
 
A1: 1st couple skips a figure eight down through the 2nd couple, ending in place
A2: 2nd couple skips a figure eight up through the 1st couple, ending in place
B1: Beginning with partner, four changes of a circular hey (rights and lefts without hands)
B2: Couples two hand turn around each other counterclockwise, ending in place
 
When done this way, I suppose the dance would be called Flowers of Edinburgh - the Extended Expanded Edition!



So - what do you think? Is this an improvement over the original Flowers of Edinburgh? Do you have ideas on how this could be further altered to make it still better? Please comment with feedback - I'd love to hear it!
Also, if any of you wish to try this thing out and see if it actually works with real people, that would be great! Thus far all the testing has been on paper, and I'm interested in finding out if it's actually doable! :)
 
 
 
 
Finally, for the sake of including a picture of some sort - and because I myself am fond of "behind the scenes" sorts of things - here's the "drawing board" paper I wrote up while arranging this dance. Like nearly everything I write, it is in extremely small print and far too wordy... :)
 
 

 

 

These little 8-by-5-inch pages don't even take into account the computation involved for the whole "what happens on the ends" issue, which was only resolved by drawing several hundred little figures in progression diagrams all over a 17-by-21-inch sheet of paper! :)

A Collection of Critiques

A few months ago, several members of our family participated in a thoroughly pleasant evening of English Country Dancing with a room full of friends and acquaintances. Typically what happens after such an event is that I go home and write up half a dozen pages concerning said event in my journal. These pages are usually lists and descriptions of who was in attendance, which dances were done, what interesting conversations were had, what new things were learned, etc., etc. However, the journal entries pertaining to that particular evening in April, while including portions along those themes, took on a rather different character from the standard. This time, my overview was focused primarily on the composition of the dances we had done that evening - measuring the enjoyableness of some as compared to others, considering the aspects of each, and drawing conclusions as to what contributes to a well written dance. This post is basically an extended version of the dance analysis I began that evening.
(journal excerpts and dance titles in italics)



The first dance of the evening was The Circassian Circle, which is an excellent dance for starting with, as it gets everybody going with simple steps and a highly adjustable activity level - a perfect warm up! Being a mixer, it also allows for the greeting of many people within a short amount of time, which is another desirable quality in a first dance of any event.



Up next was Flowers of Edinburgh, the ultimate dance for all those who love skipping in figure eights. :)

It was somewhere around the middle of the dance when it struck me just how BORING Flowers of Edinburgh is - at least for one who has been doing it for three years (or somewhere thereabouts) - and I began wondering how it might be elaborated on to make it more interesting. So far I have been considering rewriting it as a triple minor, either elaborating the figure eights somehow or using a mirrored hey somewhere. It will take some more thought and a bit of scribbling little "proof of concept" illustrations, but surely something could be done...

It is my firm belief that if it is not possible to carry on a conversation with one's partner during a dance, that dance had better have really neat steps and at least some degree of challenge to it! Flowers of Edinburgh only uses two steps (figure eights and two-hand turns), yet somehow manages to completely block out the possibility of having a connected dialogue with one's partner - or with anyone else, for that matter!

Though I have not come up with a way to fix the conversation block without abandoning the character of the dance altogether, I have been experimenting with expanding on the basic theme to make the dance at least somewhat more challenging. Once the layout is solidified, perhaps I'll post the calls here for your review and further revision.



Yellow Stockings was next, if I remember correctly. Now here is a dance that was just not well thought out! I'm all for a balance of partner/neighbor/corner interaction, but this one just doesn't have a balance - scarcely even a mixture! This is a dance for the corners, and no mistake! (Though that is a mistake, and a major one...)

Supposing you are the second lady. You two-hand turn your corner for twelve counts, watch your partner two-hand turn your neighbor for twelve, stand still for another interval of the same duration, and finish out with rights and lefts. In the full course of the dance, you only interact with your partner for six counts! Yes, the first couple has twice that, due to the six counts allotted to the brief sashay down and up... but really! It is ridiculous to go to the effort of finding a partner, lining up in the longways sets, taking hands four, etc., etc., only to spend the greater part of the time with a bunch of corners! Dances are usually written so that one actually gets to do something with the person they asked... I can't imagine why this one wasn't!

The best part of Yellow Stockings is undoubtedly the music. Ah, how I love it! I still think it would be neat to dance The Hole in the Wall to this recording. Totally different in feel, of course... but neat!



Then there was Bare Necessities - I love that dance! Mainly for the music, of course... :) The dance itself is flowing and elegant, and is in the less-than-usual set-up of three couples in a circle; also, though the steps are fairly common, the progression is interesting and requires a bit of thought and good timing to execute well.

One dancer in our set of six remarked that Bare Necessities would look nice from above - this threw me into a whole new strain of dance analysis! At first I thought, "leave it to a videographer to talk about a dance in terms of what it would look like in a top-down shot!" Immediately afterwards, however, I began to realize just how right he was in this assessment. A star for three? Grand rights and lefts ending in a twirl? Waltzing? A gypsy once and a half around, and a graceful step backwards for a starburst progression? Of course! What could possibly be better for an aerial view? He was absolutely right in his observation! Still, I must admit that this thought would never have come to me... my thoughts are usually elsewhere... for example, at the moment in question I myself was overwhelmed by the beauty of the swelling strings in the recording; indeed, so bursting with delight was I that, in a rare expression of feeling, I came close to smiling!



Juice of Barley... this one, I think, would not look good from above. It certainly didn't look nice from the top of the line when we made it there - it was so lopsided-looking during the "weave through" portions! Everybody bunched over on one side, people having to turn sideways in an effort to not collide with the people they were going between... also, the lines themselves weren't straight. Ugh.
Still, the music was great! One of the finest improvised renditions by Bare Necessities, though perhaps not one of their crispest recordings.



Later in the evening we danced Auretti's Dutch Skipper, another longways for as many as will in 6/8 timing. This dance is fairly basic, by which I mean there is nothing extraordinary or surprising about it. As such, however, it provides a good illustration of the "typical" English Country Dance.

The first couple steps down the set, then casts up to place for a two hand turn. This sequence is then performed by the second couple from the opposite direction. Next, there is a two hand turn for the first corners, followed by the same for the second. Partners face again, maintaining friendly eye contact for the set twice, and the round is completed with three changes of a circular hey to progress. All the while, everyone is moving in time with the calmly joyful music so proficiently performed by Bare Necessities on piano, violin, and flute. The result is a thoroughly pleasing dancing experience!



An interesting segment of the evening came when we all attempted to learn The Young Widow, a longways dance in triple minor formation - sets of three couples down the line as opposed to the more typical sets of two. Since none of us were very familiar with this formation (and some of us not at all!), it took awhile to figure out what exactly was supposed to happen and make it actually work out with some measure of style. In the end, everything worked out.



The final two dance experiences of the evening were dancing The Scottish and beginning to learn The Laendler! The former was thoroughly delightful, as always, and the latter only somewhat less so because I had no idea what I was doing! Ah well... both were excellent!



Though I've been harsh on many of the dances we did that evening, let me hasten to say that it truly was a delightful time - indeed, 'twas one of the top three dance events I've ever attended! The conversations were pleasant, the people-watching was entertaining, and the dancing was grand! I just happen to like picking things apart, and thought I'd share some of my opinionated analyses. :)