Tim McDaniel, in the SCA Daniel de Lincoln, 16 June 2017
As many couples as will, starting by taking inside hands.
| Phrase | Steps | Beats | Picture | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A, A | Single forward, single back, double forward. Repeat. | 16 | |
doble trace |
| B | Make a heart. Cast outward away from your partner with a "pavane": single, single, double. End facing your partner taking original ("inside") hands: lord's right, lady's left. | 8 | |
and a hertt in the end |
| C | Holding hands, two slipping steps in the direction of your hands. | 2 | |
After the end of the trace, rak both on way |
| Turn back to back still holding hands. | 2 | |
and in the end turn bak to bak | |
| C | Still holding hands, two slipping steps in the direction of your hands. | 2 | |
then reke ayn bak to bak |
| Turn face to face while dropping hands, angled slightly left. | 2 | |
and in the end turne face to face. | |
| D | Side past your partner one double and double back to place. | 8 | |
then 3 singlis, ethir contrary oder and three bak ayen. |
| D | Back a double from your partner, then double to meet. | 8 | |
Then eithir retrett oder 3 singlis then come togeder |
| E | Make a heart the other way. Face down the hall. Cast outward away from your partner with a "pavane": single, single, double. End proper, side by side, and take inside hands. | 8 | |
and make a heryy ayen. |
The Gresley manuscript is explained in Emma Dansmeyla and Martin Bildner, "More Dances from the Gresley Manuscript", Known World Dance Symposium VII, http://rendance.gyges.org/content/seven_gresley_dances/KWDS_VIII_Notes.pdf. Their main page is at http://rendance.gyges.org/, for the Ontario Renaissance Dance Guild. The tune can be downloaded from that main page; it repeats the dance three times. Their booklet of instructions hasn't been posted yet. I shamelessly stole their reconstruction, and even the notion of their table of steps with musical phrases, the original text, and diagrams of dancers.
For some reason, my local group found it hard to do the first heart up the hall and then the second heart down the hall. Therefore, we do both hearts up the hall. But I haven't seen any such difficulty elsewhere. Shrug?
One danceability problem is the raking: some feel that it is awkward and unusual. They have to take slip steps while facing someone and holding hands, then the pivot is fast, then they have to take slip steps without facing the person, then there's another fast pivot. I have no solution to suggest other than, if one dancer in a couple has a physical problem with doing the slipping or turning, the couple can agreeing to some alternative steps. For example, the couple might decide to do only one slip or even no slips.
I disagree with the next bit, Emma and Martin's reconstruction of "... and in the end turne face to face. then 3 singlis, ethir contrary oder and three bak ayen". They have
My thinking: the manuscript says "and in the end turne face to face". Directions for facing are unusual in the few dances I've looked at. I think it's significant, and in particular there should not be an immediate extra turn that is not notated and removes the effect of turn to face. Also, that's a lot of turning, especially in no time or including turns as part of other steps. I take "3 singlis, ethir contrary oder" more literally. Since you can't actually phase through each other's body like a lepton, the closest movement is to side past. In Prenes in Gre, Gaita reconstructed "Then face to face 6 singlis, ethir contrary oder" as siding two doubles.
Copyright 2017 by Tim McDaniel,
tmcd@panix.com.
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A ZIP file of all my Gresley instructions is at http://www.panix.com/~tmcd/dance/gresley/gresley.zip.