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Pace egging
Apr. 26th, 2009 03:27 pmWent out today to dance with a number of morris dance sides and a see a pace-egging play.
We had my old side, Dorset Buttons. I did one dance with them - Gorton - which demonstrates that there are some dances that you never forget. It's a fairly straightforward dance and I got through it without a missed step (apart from forgetting that the star is right-hand only with no left-hand star to follow). Dancers have a conditioned reflex to music. When you hear the right tune, you know what the walk-up (chorus) is, even though the mind was blank ten seconds earlier.
Bourne River were dancing in fine form. They're the only traditional Cotswold side around our area, and they're all men, but all getting on in years. Still, the best dancer among them retired from work five or six years ago - and you'd never know it to watch his dancing.
Quayside Cloggies (my current side) fielded more dancers than we'd been expecting, which meant we redrew the dance lists, but it was a good thing as we got to dance more variety of dances.
Bourne River double up as a mumming side, Stour Vale mummers.
They were in fine form with their pace egging play. They'd cheerfully shifted it from Easter to celebrate St George's day. What's a pace-egging play? Remarkably like a Christmas mummers play, but with a few changes of minor character. Edit out Father Christmas and add an old lady with a basket of eggs.
The text was similar to, but far from identical to, this one.
The Turkish knight was inspired. He had a costume that looked as though he was wearing a dome from Brighton pavilion on his head, robes made from exotic curtains, a scimitar large enough to be seen half a mile away and the most wonderful long, pointy-toed slippers. He'd managed to fit some Christmas blow-out whistles at the end of them and conceal some air bulbs somewhere in his costume, so that he could make the toes of his slippers suddenly blow out several extra inches and make a noise!
When the Turkish Knight was killed, he managed it in true Shakespearean fashion with a dying speech lasting a couple minutes as he staggered from side to side across the flagstones while two other characters ran around behind him carrying a large tarpaulin to catch him as he fell.
The doctor made the very most of his role.
"What can I cure? I can cure (the whole audience chimes in here - they know the words) the itch, the stitch, the palsy and the gout"
"I knew you were going to say that£", he says. "I can cure more. I can cure CJD, STD, HIV and DVD"
Which perfectly demonstrates how to have both the classic old lines, and bring them up to date so as to be both traditional and funny at the same time.
An excellent play, with superb over-acting from all concerned, a truely bravado St George, a doctor with more lines of quackery than a pond-full of ducks and even the minor characters being funny and engaging well with the audience.
We had my old side, Dorset Buttons. I did one dance with them - Gorton - which demonstrates that there are some dances that you never forget. It's a fairly straightforward dance and I got through it without a missed step (apart from forgetting that the star is right-hand only with no left-hand star to follow). Dancers have a conditioned reflex to music. When you hear the right tune, you know what the walk-up (chorus) is, even though the mind was blank ten seconds earlier.
Bourne River were dancing in fine form. They're the only traditional Cotswold side around our area, and they're all men, but all getting on in years. Still, the best dancer among them retired from work five or six years ago - and you'd never know it to watch his dancing.
Quayside Cloggies (my current side) fielded more dancers than we'd been expecting, which meant we redrew the dance lists, but it was a good thing as we got to dance more variety of dances.
Bourne River double up as a mumming side, Stour Vale mummers.
They were in fine form with their pace egging play. They'd cheerfully shifted it from Easter to celebrate St George's day. What's a pace-egging play? Remarkably like a Christmas mummers play, but with a few changes of minor character. Edit out Father Christmas and add an old lady with a basket of eggs.
The text was similar to, but far from identical to, this one.
The Turkish knight was inspired. He had a costume that looked as though he was wearing a dome from Brighton pavilion on his head, robes made from exotic curtains, a scimitar large enough to be seen half a mile away and the most wonderful long, pointy-toed slippers. He'd managed to fit some Christmas blow-out whistles at the end of them and conceal some air bulbs somewhere in his costume, so that he could make the toes of his slippers suddenly blow out several extra inches and make a noise!
When the Turkish Knight was killed, he managed it in true Shakespearean fashion with a dying speech lasting a couple minutes as he staggered from side to side across the flagstones while two other characters ran around behind him carrying a large tarpaulin to catch him as he fell.
The doctor made the very most of his role.
"What can I cure? I can cure (the whole audience chimes in here - they know the words) the itch, the stitch, the palsy and the gout"
"I knew you were going to say that£", he says. "I can cure more. I can cure CJD, STD, HIV and DVD"
Which perfectly demonstrates how to have both the classic old lines, and bring them up to date so as to be both traditional and funny at the same time.
An excellent play, with superb over-acting from all concerned, a truely bravado St George, a doctor with more lines of quackery than a pond-full of ducks and even the minor characters being funny and engaging well with the audience.
