March 26th

This week was a little messy, with some people late and others leaving early. We didn't do the dances in the order below.

Open class

Old Measures

• Earl of Essex Measure
• Queen's Almain - the version from MS Rawlinson Poet. 108
• New Almain

15th century

• Introduction to 15thC Italian terms and steps.
• Gelosia

Advanced class

Continued work: La Figlia fi Guglielimino, for four

This is coming on nicely. Points to work on:

• transition out of bassadanza, including weight change
• men's mezzevolte
• tidy up piva: faster, smoother, cleaner movimenti

New Material: Belriguardo 

We tried Domenico's unfigured Belriguardo for the first time, then compared it with Gulglielmo's figured version for two. Even split about which version is preferred.

Work on:

• hops in saltarello in bassadanza: time (6 not 5), smoothness
• pace of rise and fall in bassadanza (esp. hesitate at top, fast descent on 6)
• contrapassi in bassadanza - how to count

Dance game:

Continued with the improvisation and memorisation game we played last week: taking turns to add an element to a sequence in a given style.

We managed twice around - 8 elements - in Canario style. Then similar in 15th C Italian bassadanza style, adding one tempo each, then adding two tempi. We then danced our little bassadanza to music, in a circle, then advancing as a group of three. Good discussion of it's choreography (though at the start the aim was not a balanced bassadanza choreography).