Message-Id: <61AC5C9A4B9CD11181A200805F57CD54088C9718@RED-MSG-44>
From: Keith Savage <keithsa@MICROSOFT.com>
To: minstrel@pbm.com
Subject: RE: minstrel: Bardic, Period, Etc.
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 16:00:09 -0700
Sender: owner-minstrel@rt.com
Precedence: bulk

Greg Lindahl asked "How do you feel about doing modern dances at events,
either for social
dancing or competition/displays?"

...ok, even though I don't think it is quite an apples to apples comparison
I'll bite...

Seeing modern dances (or at least non-period dances) as performance pieces
might or might not bother me and conversely might or might not be something
I enjoy seeing at an SCA event.  For example seeing some of the OOP stuff
that folks do in the Middle Eastern dancing arena doesn't bother me too much
(and there is also some great period M.Eastern dancing too), however seeing
some of the Scottish or Irish country dances are a little more jarring.

That may be do the fact that Middle Eastern dance is more obscure and
mysterious to me (and especially to my persona) than the country dances I
recognize from my childhood and know immediately without having to think
about it that they are out of period.

But in general as "performance" pieces I judge them on their fun factor
balanced against how badly they might jar my sense of the dream.  I've seen
many a late night music session spontaneously producing dancers of various
talents doing everything from a bransle to something that looks suspiciously
like the Macarena but fun seems to have been had by all.

For competition I don't feel qualified to say much (dance is not one of my
areas of interest), but since you asked you get my opinion.  For someone
with a persona from a time where we don't have any dances documented or even
a description other than something like "and then they danced..." in a story
or history I would give them a lot of lee-way if they could give me any hint
at all about why they were interpreting a dance piece in some particular
(possibly modern) way.  I would give them more points for the effort in
trying to at least interpret the sense or the feeling of a particular dance
than I would if they just said "documentation doesn't exist so I can't do
anything in personna."

And that leads me to a closing statement - I would rather see someone try
and make an interpretation "in persona" even if they have to use modern
elements than see them do nothing at all.  Otherwise we would all have to
stick the dances (or music, or whatever) from later in our period when we
start getting decent descriptions.  In other words, we know music existed in
say 6th century Ireland but we don't know how they danced (or much about how
the music was actually played) - I would still appreciate an interpretive
piece that tried to capture the possible "feel."  For example, I would
appreciate an early Irish song or poem (translated or not) set to original
music and a single or group of dancers performing something interpretive.  

In a competition setting this would be hard to judge against someone with an
entry in persona from a period where documentation does exist - I know I
wouldn't want the job.  I'm just expressing how I "feel" since you asked.

Gryphon

		-----Original Message-----
		From:	Greg Lindahl [mailto:lindahl@pbm.com]
		Sent:	Wednesday, September 30, 1998 3:08 PM
		To:	Keith Savage
		Cc:	minstrel@pbm.com
		Subject:	Re: minstrel: Bardic, Period, Etc.

		> Anyway, to be less oblique (and hopefully less offensive),
as a discussion
		> topic how do people feel about the use of modern
instruments from both the
		> general performance and competition perspectives?

		I've already talked about that a bunch of times, so I'll
pass this
		time around.

		How do you feel about doing modern dances at events, either
for social
		dancing or competition/displays?

		-- gb

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this list, send email to majordomo@pbm.com containing
the words "unsubscribe minstrel". If you are subscribed to the digest version,
say "unsubscribe minstrel-digest". To contact a human about problems, send
mail to owner-minstrel@pbm.com