Pasadena, CA

12/19/2015

Band: Mariposa String Band

(Briana Bandy, Emil Olguin, Elizabeth Todd)

Theme night: Stars


  Dance Name Author Variants/comments
1 Spring Fever Tony Parkes  
2 Christmas Stars Me  
3 Star Stuff Me  
4 True Grit Me  
5 The Fair Maid Cary Ravitz  
6 Balancing Stars Jonathan Southard Square
Thar star break
7 Sanders' Swing Me  
Break
8 Fiddling with the Stars Al Olson  
9 T.A.G. Roger Whynot  
10 Hula La Martha Wild  
11 My Hungarian Gypsy Star Jim Hemphill  
12 Enid's Other Delight Peter Foster  

A Christmas-themed dance, so I did an all-stars program. It was a bit simpler than my previous program.

  1. Spring Fever: A nice beginner dance, where I talked about the star to promenade transition.
  2. Christmas Stars: Stars of three, written for this evening.
  3. Star Stuff: The star promenade of the evening. It leaked about one dancer per iteration.
  4. True Grit: Stars into and out of a right and left through
  5. The Fair Maid (revised): Casting into and out of stars. Surprisingly resilient.
  6. Balancing Stars: A mistake, as the main figure was too close to the break figure. Should have done a non-star dance here. The break worked well though. The break was allemande left, partner allemande right to a thar star. Rotate the star, turn partner halfway, and rotate the star some more. Repeat, then throw in the clutch and put it in low (drop hands with partner, everybody forward, second time you pass your partner, allemande left your corner and swing your partner).
  7. Sanders' Swing: Swinging Star.
  8. Fiddling with the Stars: Teaching this involved the ones making a long wave in the center, and then twos taking left hands and asking people to find their stars. My real breakthrough was figuring out how to prompt this: "Ones separate, go to different stars," and later "ones star with the other people." It really doesn't matter if man one goes up or down for the stars as long as his partner's in the other star.
  9. T.A.G.: Done loosely phrased. A good dance, but the timing is too tight for many to sneak in a swing at the end.
  10. Hula La: Pull under out of a star.
  11. My Hungarian Gypsy Star: Gypsy stars
  12. Enid's Other Delight: Star into and out of single file promenade.

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