Orynge de Tribus (Gresley; tune and choreography by Gaita)

Tim McDaniel, in the SCA Daniel de Lincoln, 25 March 2019

For three dancers in single file, called Front (F), Middle (M), and Back (B). NOTE! This dance is very syncopated. Only one person moves per call, unless it says "All".

Phrase	Steps	Beats	Picture	Source
A in 4	All forward 6 doubles (or 12 pive).	24		After the end of the trace,
B in 6	Front doubles forward, stepping on beats 1, 3, 4.	6		the first 3 forth,
	Middle doubles forward, stepping on beats 1, 3, 4.	6		the 2d the same,
	Back doubles forward, stepping on beats 1, 3, 4.	6		the 3d the same.
C in 4	Front does 4 pive to do a figure S: curve left, weave between Middle and Back, curve right to fall in line behind Back.	8		Then the first man throth tham and go behend.
B in 6, C in 4	Sections B and C again from where you stand: Middle, Back, and Front doubling in that order, and then Middle weaving to the back.	18 + 8	See above	Then the 2d man 3 forth, the 3d the same, the first the same and throgh tham and goo behend.
B in 6, C in 4	Sections B and C again from where you stand: Back, Front, and Middle doubling in that order, and then Back weaving to the back. Everyone ends in home order.	18 + 8	See above	Then 3d man thre forth, the first the same, the 2d the same and the 3d though tham and goo behynd.
D in 4	Front doubles back right to stand to the right of Back.	4		Then the first 3 bak,
	Middle does 1 small double back left to stand to the left of Back. After this, they are in line abreast, Middle - Back - Front.	4		then the second 3 bak.
	Take hands in line abreast. All double forward, all double back.	8		Then all togeder thre forth and thre bak
	Drop hands. Each turn single to the right 3/4 turn.	4		and then <bak and al togeder do obbey[sance]>
	End up back in single file, Middle then Back then Front -- you have progressed.

If the music repeats, do it again from the new positions. Old Middle becomes new Front, old Back becomes new Middle, and old Front becomes new Back. That is, one repetition progresses the dancers. Like the SCA commonly does with three repetitions of Black Nag, each person dances each part until they're back to their original positions.

Source

A Gresley introduction is 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/: Ontario Renaissance Dance Guild.

Orynge does not have a tune in the Gresley manuscript, so Gaita composed a tune. Gaita has a page at http://www.gaita.co.uk/. It's on their CD "Trobyll me the bordon: Dances from the 15th Century" by Gaïta. You should order both the CD and the booklet -- they are separate purchases. Their rendition has 3 times through the music.

Dance

I've had two problems. One is with Gaita's music. It is skillfully performed and interesting to listen to ("witness the firepower of our fully armed and operational battle shawms!"). But they don't provide a strong beat. Also, they switch between what sounds to me like parts in 4 beats and parts in 6 beats. To be able to teach it, I had to listen to it several times through to understand it in fullness. When starting to teach it, I had to clap with the dancers involved, and when calling, call the exact steps.

The other problem is just remembering that, near the end, Front backs up right and then Middle backs up left. If you go the other way, then the dance has not progressed, and the next repetition will be exactly the same as the first. Mind you, that's still danceable; it's just repetitive. (Well, thinking about it, I suppose that, if you realize it immediately, the caller could say, "turn left instead! Start the single file the other way!" I doubt that that would work in practice, no pun intended.)

Also, to emphasize a point in the table: to end up line abreast, Front's double right has to be longer, and Middle's double left has to be shorter.

Copyright 2017 by Tim McDaniel, tmcd@panix.com.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

The URL for this page is http://www.panix.com/~tmcd/dance/gresley/orynge.html. A ZIP file of all my Gresley instructions is at http://www.panix.com/~tmcd/dance/gresley/gresley.zip.