First, how have I not read The Decameron before now? If you have not read it, go forth and find a copy for as little as a penny. (Or it will be at your library for free.) The table of contents handily summarizes each tale, so you can find the naughty ones easily. (There is an online Decameron, but it has older translations that gloss over some of the most amusing tales.)
Now that the PSA is done... in between the one hundred tales, there is a little bit of prose about the ten tellers. Not much, really, and on my first lookings-through there's only one of the ten who even qualifies as a character (Dioneo). But, before and after every batch of stories, the young people sing and dance caroles. The king or the queen of the day selects one to lead the dance, one or two to play instruments, and one to sing. All sing choruses.
Brilliant! The main vocalist does not dance! Breathing problems solved!
Because someone "leads the dance," I am guessing they are making it up as they go along, or else it's vaguely conga-line like. Some quick experimentation has shown me you can dance the Tangle Bransle steps (left single x3, right single) to: The Lusty Young Smith, any ballad, Wild Mountain Thyme, The Chandler's Wife. This implies you could dance any four repeating dance steps to possibly most of the SCA traditional song corpus. You might be able to invent alternating dance steps (e.g., left single x3, right single; left single x3, turn single, repeat all) but you might also run into problems with the ends of verses or choruses; similarly, you may or may not be able to have separate chorus choreography.
Or, in summary: It is dead easy to repeat ad infinitum any four bars of dance steps to a variety of SCA songs. Anything more complicated will require forethought. Possibly not much, but some.
Brilliant!!! You have given me a way to attend the dancing at events without having to dance!!!
You are a goddess!
Posted by: Niall Dolphin | February 03, 2009 at 11:00 AM