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Apr. 10th, 2012 09:06 pm Just back from Eastercon, probably a day later than most other folk.
Mine was a con of four parts.
1. Morris
2. LARP
3. Doc Weir
4. Programme
The morris, you probably anticipated: I did the ceilidh workshop, two Border morris workshops and a longsword (which is nothing like the Scottish dance that half of you will now be visualising) workshop and all were well attended. I was aided by an excellent group of musicians, which freed me to concentrate on teaching the dances without having to play at the same time.
People really got into the spirit of it and had a lot of fun. It was great to see smiling faces - and the occasional laugh when the longsword groups got into a tangle. Longsword is a bit like that - the dancers are in a linked ring and you go under and over various arches/swords without ever letting go your hands. Turn the wrong way by mistake and you can get in a real tangle.
Longsword is less physically demanding than morris, but a lot less forgiving of mistakes as you can't just slip quickly back into place as you can after a mistake in morris.
I asked on Friday if anyone would like to do a morris dance in the cabaret and got two volunteers. Kethry and Sean (and a couple of the band) gave up a couple of hours of their time practising 'Cuckoo's Nest' with me on the fourth floor landing. It's not the easiest of dances, as it has some tricky stepping on the chorus and a wide variety of stick moves, but they ended up giving an almost flawless performance in the cabaret and getting some enthusiastic applause from the audience.
I was absolutely delighted. There's few so happy as a teacher whose pupils excel.
I'm looking forward to doing more dance workshops at Discworld.
Mine was a con of four parts.
1. Morris
2. LARP
3. Doc Weir
4. Programme
The morris, you probably anticipated: I did the ceilidh workshop, two Border morris workshops and a longsword (which is nothing like the Scottish dance that half of you will now be visualising) workshop and all were well attended. I was aided by an excellent group of musicians, which freed me to concentrate on teaching the dances without having to play at the same time.
People really got into the spirit of it and had a lot of fun. It was great to see smiling faces - and the occasional laugh when the longsword groups got into a tangle. Longsword is a bit like that - the dancers are in a linked ring and you go under and over various arches/swords without ever letting go your hands. Turn the wrong way by mistake and you can get in a real tangle.
Longsword is less physically demanding than morris, but a lot less forgiving of mistakes as you can't just slip quickly back into place as you can after a mistake in morris.
I asked on Friday if anyone would like to do a morris dance in the cabaret and got two volunteers. Kethry and Sean (and a couple of the band) gave up a couple of hours of their time practising 'Cuckoo's Nest' with me on the fourth floor landing. It's not the easiest of dances, as it has some tricky stepping on the chorus and a wide variety of stick moves, but they ended up giving an almost flawless performance in the cabaret and getting some enthusiastic applause from the audience.
I was absolutely delighted. There's few so happy as a teacher whose pupils excel.
I'm looking forward to doing more dance workshops at Discworld.
