Our caller, Casey, had us line up and introduced us to the Virginia Reel. As she explained, this dance and a lot of dances like it originated in England and was brought over by colonists. In the colonies on the east coast, these dances were more refined and 'genteel', with more classical music and exacting movements. Large dances like the Virginia Snowball were fine for large halls, but as settlers moved away from the East and into smaller houses and cabins, there wasn't enough room for large dancing, so 'square' dancing evolved as a way to continue the entertainment.
With only a fiddle oftentimes, and sometimes a banjo, guitar, and maybe? and mandolin, people would end their long and isolated work weeks of planting, spinning, weaving, smithing, and all the other skills most local people shared, and get together in one place for a large dance. Mr. Pritz tried to help us envision the scene by imagining Google Earth, clicking on a place away from the east coast cities, and having us fly down to zero in on an area with small farms, maybe one crossroad with a small store, and people moving along in the evening to a barn on someone's property. No sounds but crickets and frogs in the nearby ponds, no lights but the stars above, and the faint sound of a fiddle, the clop of a horse's hooves, and the soft talking of people in the big outdoors as they moved toward the lighted barn.
We also did a circle dance, with left, right, promenade, and hands in the middle.
It was great to actually DO something during this session. It reminded me that there are, again, lots of ways of having fun, and being with other people, dancing and just sort of celebrating the time and place, as we did today on the stage of DeWitt Middle School, is one of those ways.
HOMEWORK: Write a thank you letter to "The O'Shanigans Contra Dance Musicians". Due tomorrow. QUALITY - ALL THE WAY!
