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Author Topic: Traditional dance - Are we doing it, or pretending to do it?  (Read 27991 times)

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Steve_freereeder

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Re: Traditional dance - Are we doing it, or pretending to do it?
« Reply #40 on: May 13, 2014, 07:58:22 AM »

Romanes eunt domus.  ::)
Romani ite domum.
100 times before sunrise  (:)
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Sebastian

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Re: Traditional dance - Are we doing it, or pretending to do it?
« Reply #41 on: May 13, 2014, 08:16:35 AM »

Hoc est quod intelligitur per quod a filo subtegminis egisse?
Are we on a threadus drifte hear gang?

Cito ad id, quod propositum sit, redeamus.
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IvanM

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Re: Traditional dance - Are we doing it, or pretending to do it?
« Reply #42 on: May 13, 2014, 04:01:11 PM »

While reading the topic the Soviet dance state-funded troupes came to my mind. Then some people here mentioned them and I must confess very few Russian people like them really much and no-one considers them as folk. Because the folk do not dance that and has never danced! It was and still is a silly propaganda dazzle. The real Russian peasants didn't dance choreographic pas in concert halls before the public. They just dressed their best costumes, gathered in the square of their village, then danced and sang as they could and just had fun. But during the Soviet times this activity has totally died out. I lived some time in a village and I never saw the people there dance such ways. Those Soviet "folk" troupes are fake! The government did these fakes to show they respected the people and traditions and that everything's OK. But in fact they've rooted out every Russian tradition they could. Unfortunately, many people now make amateur bands and try to imitate these Soviet fakes. But all these are not traditional but more like invented traditions.
« Last Edit: May 13, 2014, 04:06:02 PM by IvanM »
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Mike Carney

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Re: Traditional dance - Are we doing it, or pretending to do it?
« Reply #43 on: May 13, 2014, 05:49:16 PM »

Well said IvanM.
Mike
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Sebastian

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Re: Traditional dance - Are we doing it, or pretending to do it?
« Reply #44 on: May 13, 2014, 06:10:43 PM »

But all these are not traditional but more like invented traditions.
Isn't every tradition invented? I don't know what this "traditional dance" might be.
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TomB-R

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Re: Traditional dance - Are we doing it, or pretending to do it?
« Reply #45 on: May 13, 2014, 06:25:43 PM »

But all these are not traditional but more like invented traditions.
Isn't every tradition invented? I don't know what this "traditional dance" might be.
Alleged notice put up at a newly built college "As from 1 February it will be traditional that only senior teaching staff may walk on the grass in the quadrangle."
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Graham Spencer

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Re: Traditional dance - Are we doing it, or pretending to do it?
« Reply #46 on: May 13, 2014, 07:01:28 PM »

But all these are not traditional but more like invented traditions.
Isn't every tradition invented? I don't know what this "traditional dance" might be.
I've had this discussion in the pub with dancers and musicians more times than I care to remember. Yes, of course someone - or a group of someones - did it for the first time. Then another someone (or group of someones) thought it was a pretty good idea so they did it again; and then, in the manner of fleas in the rhyme, "and so, ad infinitum". What makes it "traditional" isn't that it springs from some mysterious unknown source, or that it's repeated countless times over long periods of time; it's that successive - or indeed contemporary - someones (or groups of someones) take it and make it their own, altering it in subtle ways, modifying it almost unconsciously over time and placing on it the stamp of their own place and time. How many of us play a tune EXACTLY the same way twice running, never mind over years or decades? I know I don't, and neither, I imagine, did the old "traditional" players. How many of us hear a tune, take a fancy to it and then "learn" it from the recollection in our heads, only to find, sometimes years later, that the version we originally heard didn't go quite like that? So,  I imagine, did the old "traditional" players. Same applies, in general, to dances, especially where there's been no continuous tradition (but not exclusively - just look at Bampton!). I reckon "traditional" dance is something that happens by some kind of common consent, as opposed to a "show" (whether professional, amateur, "folk", "classical" or whatever) where a director of some kind dictates the form and style and it's always, even over generations, done exactly as prescribed.

Graham
« Last Edit: May 13, 2014, 07:07:19 PM by GPS »
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malcolmbebb

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Re: Traditional dance - Are we doing it, or pretending to do it?
« Reply #47 on: May 13, 2014, 07:10:42 PM »


... I reckon "traditional" dance is something that happens by some kind of common consent,

Graham

Quite like that way of looking at it.
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Chris Ryall

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Re: Traditional dance - Are we doing it, or pretending to do it?
« Reply #48 on: May 13, 2014, 07:32:41 PM »

But all these are not traditional but more like invented traditions.

Happens here too. A lot of "new wave" 1980s+ dance sides have been merrily making up their own dances for a couple of decades. Mainly to the good, I think, though some just won't make it to the next generation. There's also a "tradition" called "Litchfield morris" that someone "found in an old book" or similar. Quite nice dances, but I understand that if you look for evidence of it in any town archive … you will look in vain ;)

The umbrella "Morris Ring" also invented "a tradition" of "Mass dancing", inspired by that Red Army choir but without Red Army discipline ;) All the different town sides dance, and all the musicians do their thing at one time. Different tune phrasing, different dance timing, the lot ::) Now they all have Internet they are at least all in the same key! :|glug
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Graham Spencer

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Re: Traditional dance - Are we doing it, or pretending to do it?
« Reply #49 on: May 13, 2014, 07:35:12 PM »

Now they all have Internet they are at least all in the same key!

Not necessarily.... ::)
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pikey

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Re: Traditional dance - Are we doing it, or pretending to do it?
« Reply #50 on: May 13, 2014, 08:03:38 PM »

But all these are not traditional but more like invented traditions.
Isn't every tradition invented? I don't know what this "traditional dance" might be.

Invented like Shropshire Bedlams border Morris ?   ;)
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Ebor_fiddler

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Re: Traditional dance - Are we doing it, or pretending to do it?
« Reply #51 on: May 13, 2014, 10:10:56 PM »

I've just been glancing though Ivor Allsop's Sword Dance Book before exporting it to Canada, and read his chapter on Escrick. It's nothing like the way we (Ebor) do it! Then I looked at his Helmsley description. This was "reconstructed" by Spen Valley Longsword, but Ivor's description is nothing like the way it is danced by Spen Valley! This is tradition in action.  :-*
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pikey

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Re: Traditional dance - Are we doing it, or pretending to do it?
« Reply #52 on: May 13, 2014, 10:18:38 PM »

Romanes eunt domus.  ::)
Romani ite domum.
100 times before sunrise  (:)

Not at my age  ;)
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Chris Ryall

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Re: Traditional dance - Are we doing it, or pretending to do it?
« Reply #53 on: May 13, 2014, 10:28:06 PM »

.
       "Ivor in action", methinks …  :|glug
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pikey

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Re: Traditional dance - Are we doing it, or pretending to do it?
« Reply #54 on: May 13, 2014, 10:42:14 PM »

Ebor do Escrick in their own style, interpreted from Sharpes book and aided by pints of Newcastle Amber.  Just like most teams.

Btw the 'trad' Cotswold teams continually developed and hence changed their dances and dance movements , particularly when they had competitions against other teams. Hence it's very hard to define what 'traditional' is. 

Btw Rapper teams were even more prevalent at doing this.

Is it when a collector such as Sharp wrote it down and hence 'froze' it? and how do we know for sure he captured it correctly ? There is plenty of evidence in Sharps notes that many of his dancers, sword and Cotswold, had trouble remembering how to do it.

Tradition evolves, it always did, and always will.
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Sebastian

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Re: Traditional dance - Are we doing it, or pretending to do it?
« Reply #55 on: May 13, 2014, 11:11:08 PM »

I reckon "traditional" dance is something that happens by some kind of common consent, as opposed to a "show" (whether professional, amateur, "folk", "classical" or whatever) where a director of some kind dictates the form and style and it's always, even over generations, done exactly as prescribed.
Well, than this dance in the video could also be described as "traditional" dance, because we all do it, not as a show, but just dancing? It just happens by some kind of common consent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbQ9GCWS5eE
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Graham Spencer

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Re: Traditional dance - Are we doing it, or pretending to do it?
« Reply #56 on: May 14, 2014, 06:03:42 AM »

As an old morris friend of mine once said - many, many years ago now - when we we having this very discussion in the pub, "People do it, so it must be folk......"
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Sage Herb

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Re: Traditional dance - Are we doing it, or pretending to do it?
« Reply #57 on: May 14, 2014, 07:34:58 AM »

'All music is folk music. I ain't never heard no horse sing a song' (Louis Armstrong). Or presumably dance (pantomime horses don't count here).
Cheers
Steve
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Re: Traditional dance - Are we doing it, or pretending to do it?
« Reply #58 on: May 14, 2014, 07:39:53 AM »

(pantomime horses don't count here).
Cheers
Steve

Oh yes they do!!
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Among others, Saltarelle Pastourelle II D/G; Hohner 4-stop 1-rows in C & G; assorted Hohners; 3-voice German (?) G/C of uncertain parentage; lovely little Hlavacek 1-row Heligonka; B♭/E♭ Koch. Newly acquired G/C Hohner Viktoria. Also Fender Jazz bass, Telecaster, Stratocaster, Epiphone Sheraton, Charvel-Jackson 00-style acoustic guitar, Danelectro 12-string and other stuff..........

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Sage Herb

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Re: Traditional dance - Are we doing it, or pretending to do it?
« Reply #59 on: May 14, 2014, 07:43:50 AM »

(pantomime horses don't count here).
Cheers
Steve

Oh yes they do!!
I'll get mi saddle blanket.........
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