Sat. 15 June Winter/Summer Solstice Ball
Canberra Baptist Church Hall, Currie St., Kingston, 7-11pm.
We enjoyed lots of great company, lively music, food, frienship, and the following dances:
2 late 16th century English court dances: ‘La Bonnette’, from a newly found Inns of Court manuscript and ‘The nyne muses’ (perhaps a masque dance) from a different manuscript,
4 late 16th century Italian dances: ‘Bellezza Olympia’, a beautiful 2 person-dance; ‘Canario’ and ‘Galliard dating’, two fun show-off courting dances; Squilina, a flirting 3-person dance
3 early 17th century dances: ‘La Gillotte’, a broken-circle dance; ‘Bourrée à six passages’ that goes to the same tune later used for the English dance ‘Parson's Farewell’.
6 late-17th century English country dances: ‘Buff-coat’, ‘New Vagary’, ‘Singleton’s Slip’, ‘Skellemefago’ and ‘Smith’s Rant’ all for the first time, plus ‘Daniel Cowper’, one of my favourites.
6 fun Bordonian Lost dances: Sum 1. ‘Longway Home’; Town16. ‘Northern Stars Southern Skies’; Court 3. ‘Snowball Slalom’
Autumn 7 ‘Battering Ram’; Win. 4. ‘Past, Present, Future’; Vill. 13. ‘Baltic Crossing’
Steampunk@Altitude Festival - Sunday 5 May, Nimmitabel,
Pre-event blurb
We haven't got the whole band and dance troupe going to this weekend-long Festival (hopefully will next year), but John&Aylwen are going down on Sunday with their new big colourful spinning time-wheel to enjoy getting some dancing going in their heritage hall. Do join them. Here is the blurb and photo (courtesy of Steven Shaw) in their program:
Time-travel through dance! Spin the dial and you’ll enjoy dances, dance games and music on strange instruments from any period the needle points to. Let the Dance Doctor (a.k.a. Dr John Gardiner-Garden, the director of the Earthly Delights Historical Dance Academy) and his hat-making wife Aylwen give you, your family and friends a healthy dose of fun in the Nimmitabel hall at 11:00, 12:30 and 2:00pm.
Post-event program
Aylwen and I had three really fun sessions getting everyone (including lots of children) spinning the time-wheel and dancing randomly across the centuries (big thanks to experienced dancer David Hughes for joining us and helping it all go well!). The dances we ended up doing included the following (with Roman numeral referring to the relevant Volume from Dancing through the Ages Volumes). There may also have been one or two I've forgotten (time-travelling can be very disorienting!):
I
Petit rinense
II
Branle L’officiel
Chiara stella (which I modified for a large inward facing circle and instead of the final figure hand turns had a big mill each way with hands on arm of one in front)
III
Chirping of the Nightingale
IV
Gathering Peascods
New
Bopeep
V
(I don't recall the time-wheel taking us to this period!)
VI
Black dance / La Galopade
Comical Fellow
VII
(I don't recall the time-wheel taking us to this period!)
VIII
Gothic Dance (will be in forthcoming supplement to 1st edition of DTA)
IX
The Prisoner (which I modified for a large circle- and set to 32 bars instead of 24, giving the active dancer 16 bars rather than 8 to imprison themselves (with a right-hand shake to all the opposites and then a right-hand turn with partner).
X
Baby
Polka (with progression of partner)
Galop 4 / Danish Galop / Manchester Galop
JANE AUSTERN FESTIVAL AUSTRALIA - 12-14 April
JAFA 2019 was the 12th in this remarkable annual celebration of everything Georgian, Regency and Victorian.
Three full days and nights of costume, music, dance, food and friendship at Canberra’s beautiful Albert Hall.
The daytime activities choices—all with top presenters from around the country— included classes on sewing and singing, workshops on costume making and hair styling, talks on history and novels, impro-theater rehearsals, outdoor games, and previews of all the dances planned for the evening balls. On the final day there was also be a promenade and picnic. See the full festival program here.
Each evening everyone came together for a ball on a different historical theme and with different special performances. There were Earthly Delights Historic Dance Academy dance leaders, great musicians on grand piano, cello, clarinet, flute, pipes, hurdy-gurdy, mandolin and guitar), the superb choir I progetti and theatre presented both by ACT Impro and by a Kirsty Budding troupe (performing a scene from Pride and Prejudice). These local artists were joined by wonderful interstate dance leaders David Wanless and Vaughan Wilson and fantastic interstate musicians Deanna Devers (harp and piano), Hannah Buckley (violin) and Aimee Brown (recorder).
By the end of the weekend we understood why Jane Austen wrote in Pride and Prejudice that ‘To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love’ and ‘There is nothing like dancing after all. —I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished societies’, why she had Mr Tilney declare in Northanger Abbey that ‘I consider a country-dance as an emblem of marriage’ and why it is remarked in Emma ‘when the felicities of rapid motion have once been, though slightly, felt—it must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more’.
We are grateful to Andrew Corson for the ball videos that follow. Great memories!
Our apologies that our PA arrangement, though working for the dancers on the floor, didn’t balance instruments for these distant overhead recording… but the atmosphere and main features are captured.
Here are some short 10-13 minute overview videos.
HISTORY OF ENGLAND in DANCE! - TUDOR TO GEORGIAN PLEASURES EVENING
Albert Hall, Canberra: Friday 12 April 2019
In between readings from one of the first and funniest books Jane Austen wrote, her ‘History of England’, enjoy participatory dance from the time of the Kings and Queens she mentions, though to the Georgian era that offered the styles of Jane’s adolescence. Enjoy also the fabulous choral ensemble I progetti and a candle-lit supper. Dress Georgian, Regency or semi-formal.
JAFA 2019 - Friday Ball.mp4
In the first half of the evening, in between readings by Katarina Hall of Austen’s very fun ‘History of England’ we sampled dances from the periods of the reigns referred to.
JAFA 2019 - B1 History of England Reading.mp4
From Tudor England:
Basse d’Espagne- popular all over Europe at the time and mentioned in an English novel
Eglamowr – a fun dance named after the hero of the Sir Eglamour and Christabel romance
*Prenes a gard—a fancy dance from the Derbyshire Gresley manuscript
From Elizabethan England:
Madame Cecilia—with lots of flirting
La Chemise—from a newly discovered manuscript
Spagnoletta—where the women get to lift the men!
From Stuart England:
*Lansdowne no. 4— an incredibly fancy pattern to a great tune.
JAFA 2019 - B1 Lansdowne No4.mp4
Goddesses—a fabulous romp to a catchy tune
Aye me Symphony—a fun 3-part ‘Playford’ dance
*Masque of the Season—bringing a rare manuscript’s dance and music to life.
JAFA 2019 - B1 Masque of the Seasons.mp4
Mr Lane’s Magot—with guest singer
Half Hannykin—an easy mixer
SUPPER
Guest vocal ensemble I Progetti presented songs from the Austen family music books and then sung for:
*Emma’s Song—‘Go down to the garden singing’ in this dance Handel’ Non lo dirò col labbro
*Wachet Auf—a beautiful contradance to Bach’s beautiful cantataJAFA 2019 - B1 I Progetti Choir.mp4
Dances from the 18th century Georgian-era:
Mr Young’s Delight—an elegant longways dance
Trip to Paris—a longways English country dance to a hit from the Paris opera
*Minuet d’Alcide—a uncalled fancy French opera choreography
Dances to Bach
Fleeting moments—a cotillion allemande to the minuets of Bach cello suite no.1
*The Conundrum—an amazing 2-couple bourrée to Bach’s cello suite 4.
JAFA 2019 - B1 The Conundrum.mp4
More longways and squares dances:
Le Bois de Boulogne
Irish Washer Woman—a simple longways dance to match this lively tune.
Two finales with twists!:
CountryBumpkin—with ahat on the head of your set’s bumpkin, reel!
Meditation Chinoise—a double-sized set that will have you doubled over laughing!
JAFA 2019 - B1 Meditation Chinoise.mp4
JAFA 2019 - B1 Meditation Chinoise_Full.mp4
