Bases Loaded

by Jim Saxe, Lydee Scudder, and Tom Thoreau

The whole is more than the sum of its cliches. New patterns emerge as you put together smaller, simpler building blocks. It happens with atoms. It happens with words. As you increase the complexity scale, new emergent phenomena appear.

To a lesser extent, it happens with dance sequences. (There are fundamental constraints imposed by the 32-bar dance length and the short-term memory issue.) "Bases Loaded" is a perfect example of this done right. Take the moves forward, back, and trading places via roll-away to assemble a self-contained signature move that's 32 beats long. And it uses repetition to fight back at the piece-count monster.

It doesn't hurt that it also reminds me of "Heartsease," a very fun early English Country Dance.

As a technical note, the intended timing in the A1 & A2 is: Forward (3), turn (1), back (2), back slowly with a zesty roll-away (2).

It's also easy to graft in a neighbor swing:

B1 Circle left 3/4 (roughly, till men on original side)
   Swing neighbor
B2 Women allemande right 1 & 1/2
   Swing partner

But this is still "Bases Loaded." This is not my dance. All I've done is muck around with the generic part of the sequence. Either way it's still their wonderfully unique creation from pedestrian pieces.

Instructions for this dance can be found in Give and Take.
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