July 9th

We did an unstructured warm up (it was really cold), then Amoroso, to get us into the spirit of good renaissance style and posture.

Amoroso

Always a favourite warmup.

Pinzochera

With only 7, just to keep the choreography fresh for us.

Canaries

We practiced the basic steps, including riprese minute this time. Then two mutanze, then a turning passeggio, and finally swapping mutanze with a partner, beginning and ending each with a turning passeggio. We didn't include the beginning and end of the dance, just an exchange of variations.

Tonight's variations were:

• the first mutanza for a woman from Negri's canario
• another simple variation, cobbled from several sources 

Verceppe

Returning to Verceppe, after some rather more careful work from me. It's coming together nicely, but needs significant practice to be good. I think that, well-polished, it's a great performance piece. For now, we're just working on timing. 

Notes: we experimented with starting the initial 11 saltarello at the end of the first tempo, with a movimento on the left foot and a saltarello right. Timing the saltarello/bassadanza alternation through the later part of the dance is a bit tricky.

Thoughts for next time: the two introductory notes before the saltarello weave could allow the first and last man to do a mezavolta and salto in turn, rather than simultaneously.