Take one lot of musicians......
Add a peck of slightly bemused dancers.....
Mix together on a Sunday morning in February and what have you got....why the inaugral Mythago "Build a dance" workshop. Under normal circumstances our main problem is a lack of time to devise new dances, so when the idea of setting a day aside for just this purpose during the quieter Winter months was floated it seemed like a good solution.
It was a brilliant day, but boy did my poor little brain ache at the end of it! Once we'd chosen two tunes [both written by our squire] from the shortlist it was down to the nitty gritty of choreographing. It's a darn sight trickier than I had ever imagined, as not only does it have to fit the music, but you also need to make sure there's enough time to get people back to place and in the right formation for the next figure.
Now I don't read music and am very right brained, so frankly I struggle with planning and seeing patterns, so it was interesting to see those who are good at that sort of thing working it all out. I'm better at suggesting the smaller details. Everybody contributed and by the end we did end up with a very presentable dance. It's going to need a bit more refining, but we've got the basics down.
We hope to perform "Hellfyre" later on in the coming season. The name is from the Hellfyre Barn which the owner had kindly let us use for the day. Nowadays it's a wedding venue and is in a lovely isolated setting in West Sussex.
It might have been tiring, but there was a lot of laughter and cake too which is always a plus in my book!
Arilx
PS The spelling of Hellfyre is not some twee Merrie England type affectation. The farmhouse is from the 1300s and was derelict when the current owners took it on. When they were restoring it they found a quote above one of the fireplaces with the word "hellfyre" spelt in that way from 1594
Add a peck of slightly bemused dancers.....
Mix together on a Sunday morning in February and what have you got....why the inaugral Mythago "Build a dance" workshop. Under normal circumstances our main problem is a lack of time to devise new dances, so when the idea of setting a day aside for just this purpose during the quieter Winter months was floated it seemed like a good solution.
It was a brilliant day, but boy did my poor little brain ache at the end of it! Once we'd chosen two tunes [both written by our squire] from the shortlist it was down to the nitty gritty of choreographing. It's a darn sight trickier than I had ever imagined, as not only does it have to fit the music, but you also need to make sure there's enough time to get people back to place and in the right formation for the next figure.
Now I don't read music and am very right brained, so frankly I struggle with planning and seeing patterns, so it was interesting to see those who are good at that sort of thing working it all out. I'm better at suggesting the smaller details. Everybody contributed and by the end we did end up with a very presentable dance. It's going to need a bit more refining, but we've got the basics down.
We hope to perform "Hellfyre" later on in the coming season. The name is from the Hellfyre Barn which the owner had kindly let us use for the day. Nowadays it's a wedding venue and is in a lovely isolated setting in West Sussex.
It might have been tiring, but there was a lot of laughter and cake too which is always a plus in my book!
Arilx
PS The spelling of Hellfyre is not some twee Merrie England type affectation. The farmhouse is from the 1300s and was derelict when the current owners took it on. When they were restoring it they found a quote above one of the fireplaces with the word "hellfyre" spelt in that way from 1594
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