Dance, dance, dance, keep your body moving
Last weekend, as I mentioned at the time, was the annual international extravaganza of the Dancing England Rapper Tournament. Yes, genuinely international! with England, Scotland and the US represented. Those three (and occasionally Norway) do tend to be the lot. Thrales Rapper, based in Southwark, were the host team and they centred the weekend's proceedings on Cecil Sharp House in Camden.
For (I presume) logistical reasons, Thrales had dropped the idea of the "warm-up pub" this year. Previously every team has had one allocated dance-slot, first thing in the morning, which isn't judged. Given that our team had only had one practice at which all five dancers and the musician were present, leaping straight in was vaguely terrifying. We arrived at our first competition pub early, and found that the other two teams starting there had had the same idea - we all did an unofficial dance before things properly started.
Which was... alarming. Finding that Thrales weren't competing this year we'd filched their musician, the fabulous MJ. She went off like a rocket, correctly at competition speed, and we stumbled around in our blurry morning stupors and tried to keep up. It was not our finest hour.
Mind you, it wasn't as terrifying as Black Swan's warm-up dance. They were dancing their Second Dance, the dance that has occasionally been known to shatter furniture. No damage was done, but the miss was so near that I was all ready to leap up and render first-aid. (Non-table-wrecking footage can be seen on YouTube, the dangerous bit is at around 1:00).
Ordinarily I don't worry much about competing at DERT; it's a bit of fun, and if we do something hideously wrong... well, we won't be the first or the last. This year, however, I was dancing in an unfamiliar position. Number 1. In fact, everyone except #4 (who lives in Brighton and rarely comes to practice) was dancing out of their primary spot. (When we worked out the dancers we had for the event, we turned out to have three 4s, a 3 and a 2. Shuffling ensued.)
The thing about number 1... they "call". That is, they shout instructions as to what to do next. Ordinarily, our #3 un-traditionally does the calling, but this year she was too busy learning to be #5. Aha, you might think, surely calling's just a formality, because you've all learned the dance, you all know what's coming next? And yes, in general, it is. However... there is a rule. A rule which I have stringently insisted on within the team for years. If #1 calls something, you do it. You don't argue, you don't say "what? no! that doesn't come next", you do the figure as called. If #1 doesn't call anything at all, you don't do anything. There is a good reason for this.
At one point on Saturday, I noticed that #4 had lost hold of her sword. If we'd launched into the next figure on cue, her sword would have gone flapping loose - not only a terribly rapper faux pas, but actively dangerous. It's not a terribly complicated business to delay by 4 bars, and in general leaving people to just get on with doing what they expect will mostly work, but occasionally it's important. The downside of insisting people do what you say (not what you meant) is that you may well have to get them out of the mess you've got them into. There is tremendous capacity to go wrong. (Actually, I only called something hideously wrong once, and everyone judiciosuly ignored me ;)
My dance team does have a dreadful habit of renaming new figures to suit ourselves. Nearly every team in the country does a figure called Needles, but only we start it by calling "Sliding Doors". Lots of the linking manouvres don't really have titles, so we've named ours in such a way as to jog memories. At one point during the dance I shouted "Damn Right!" - which actually means turn into Dambusters, but do it by turning right. The turn right part applies only to one person, who used habitually to turn the wrong way - except she hasn't danced with us in over two years. Thus are traditions born.
It was observed by onlookers, that I shout very loudly. One person assumed that we'd made a mistake at one point, because I could be heard hollering "Handbrake turn!" Actually, that's a scheduled movement. I shout so loudly because one member of the team doesn't hear terribly well. (And on Saturday she was, in fact, in a different pub dancing with a different team. No wonder I had to yell.)
Anyway... we bumbled around Soho, expertly herded by ebee who'd volunteered as a helper and was awareded the task of keeping us in order and on time. We danced in odd-shaped pubs, danced in the stiflingly unpleasant darkness of the upstairs room at the Soho theatre, and picnic'd gently in Soho square. We had a jolly good day, did our final competition dance and broke out the gin.
And you know what? Those nice judging persons put us second in our class. Which is pretty much our ideal result. We get all the honour, all the glory, a nice shiny medal and we don't have the terror of promotion to the Premier class for next year :)
Our second competition dance, in the oddly-shaped Shaston Arms:
The whole YouTube selection of footage
For (I presume) logistical reasons, Thrales had dropped the idea of the "warm-up pub" this year. Previously every team has had one allocated dance-slot, first thing in the morning, which isn't judged. Given that our team had only had one practice at which all five dancers and the musician were present, leaping straight in was vaguely terrifying. We arrived at our first competition pub early, and found that the other two teams starting there had had the same idea - we all did an unofficial dance before things properly started.
Which was... alarming. Finding that Thrales weren't competing this year we'd filched their musician, the fabulous MJ. She went off like a rocket, correctly at competition speed, and we stumbled around in our blurry morning stupors and tried to keep up. It was not our finest hour.
Mind you, it wasn't as terrifying as Black Swan's warm-up dance. They were dancing their Second Dance, the dance that has occasionally been known to shatter furniture. No damage was done, but the miss was so near that I was all ready to leap up and render first-aid. (Non-table-wrecking footage can be seen on YouTube, the dangerous bit is at around 1:00).
Ordinarily I don't worry much about competing at DERT; it's a bit of fun, and if we do something hideously wrong... well, we won't be the first or the last. This year, however, I was dancing in an unfamiliar position. Number 1. In fact, everyone except #4 (who lives in Brighton and rarely comes to practice) was dancing out of their primary spot. (When we worked out the dancers we had for the event, we turned out to have three 4s, a 3 and a 2. Shuffling ensued.)
The thing about number 1... they "call". That is, they shout instructions as to what to do next. Ordinarily, our #3 un-traditionally does the calling, but this year she was too busy learning to be #5. Aha, you might think, surely calling's just a formality, because you've all learned the dance, you all know what's coming next? And yes, in general, it is. However... there is a rule. A rule which I have stringently insisted on within the team for years. If #1 calls something, you do it. You don't argue, you don't say "what? no! that doesn't come next", you do the figure as called. If #1 doesn't call anything at all, you don't do anything. There is a good reason for this.
At one point on Saturday, I noticed that #4 had lost hold of her sword. If we'd launched into the next figure on cue, her sword would have gone flapping loose - not only a terribly rapper faux pas, but actively dangerous. It's not a terribly complicated business to delay by 4 bars, and in general leaving people to just get on with doing what they expect will mostly work, but occasionally it's important. The downside of insisting people do what you say (not what you meant) is that you may well have to get them out of the mess you've got them into. There is tremendous capacity to go wrong. (Actually, I only called something hideously wrong once, and everyone judiciosuly ignored me ;)
My dance team does have a dreadful habit of renaming new figures to suit ourselves. Nearly every team in the country does a figure called Needles, but only we start it by calling "Sliding Doors". Lots of the linking manouvres don't really have titles, so we've named ours in such a way as to jog memories. At one point during the dance I shouted "Damn Right!" - which actually means turn into Dambusters, but do it by turning right. The turn right part applies only to one person, who used habitually to turn the wrong way - except she hasn't danced with us in over two years. Thus are traditions born.
It was observed by onlookers, that I shout very loudly. One person assumed that we'd made a mistake at one point, because I could be heard hollering "Handbrake turn!" Actually, that's a scheduled movement. I shout so loudly because one member of the team doesn't hear terribly well. (And on Saturday she was, in fact, in a different pub dancing with a different team. No wonder I had to yell.)
Anyway... we bumbled around Soho, expertly herded by ebee who'd volunteered as a helper and was awareded the task of keeping us in order and on time. We danced in odd-shaped pubs, danced in the stiflingly unpleasant darkness of the upstairs room at the Soho theatre, and picnic'd gently in Soho square. We had a jolly good day, did our final competition dance and broke out the gin.
And you know what? Those nice judging persons put us second in our class. Which is pretty much our ideal result. We get all the honour, all the glory, a nice shiny medal and we don't have the terror of promotion to the Premier class for next year :)
Our second competition dance, in the oddly-shaped Shaston Arms:
Click to viewThe whole YouTube selection of footage