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TYPES OF DANCES |
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mg in the other's place on the wrong sides of the set. The active couple now circles four with the odd couple oh, and around and around with a docey-doe, which tends to pacify this odd couple, before the active couple goes on to the right with another four and a half, putting the three couples again in line. Now four more passes will put each couple back in its own place, the active couple in the center, and as soon as they balance home, a left allemande and a grand right and left can finish off that quarter of the dance, but with many sets intermingling the odd couple awaits their turn.
Irregular Types
There are a few dances that seem to fit into no classification or type. Sometimes you may have two that are alike enough to make a type, but two are hardly enough to merit a title. For instance, in the Figure Eight the dancers join hands in a line and parade around in single file. In the Grapevine Twist they do the same, turning in and out through each other as they march. But this is hardly enough to justify a type in our classification.
Therefore, in the second part of this book, where the calls are given, I shall lump all of these dances together in one irregular section. And there are some mighty fine dances to be found here. These dances are only irregular in the sense that they fit in no regular classification.
Now and then we do find a completely irregular dance, so irregular that it seems impossible. One night I was dancing with the Old Town Friendly Club (Old Town being the familiar name for Colorado City, the first territorial capitol of Colorado). A strange little man who had been dancing with us, though no one had ever seen him before, announced that he was a caller and asked permission to call a square. The whole party blew up when he called the first couple out to the left. There was not a person there who had ever seen the first couple go left, or what they called "backwards." But he stoutly insisted that as many dances went left as right, so they tried his dance. I wrote down the call which was as follows:
First couple out to the left
And face the to all.
Put on style and back to the hall, |
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