By Lady Evelynn Merrymet
The Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) dance community has been learning and teaching English dances for as long as there has been an SCA. That would be 50 years this coming spring. Most commonly taught are what is known as English Country Dances (ECD) which we take from the first edition of the Playford dance manuals first published in 1651. These were then traditional dances done by the gentry in their country homes. Stylistically, they are often for 2, 3 ,or 4 couples, never 1. We also have the 10 dances from the Inns of Court that were taught in the London law schools and known by all the nobility of England in the 16 couples, all doing the same thing. The 4 Inns of Court still stand and still teach, but only law these days, not dance. Check them out if you ever make it to London. The ancient trees alone are worth the side trip.
Then in 1995 someone in England was looking through some old ledger books from what is now the Gresley estates. Where they recorded how many sheep, how much grain, and the like that were harvested that year and they noticed there was something stuck into the ledger sheets. “What’s this?” It was dance notes written by the scribe who was learning to dance. Paper was expensive and so the scribe used the masters ledger sheets. Now we have student notes for 26 dances we never heard of before! Wow cutting edge stuff for a historical society. One problem, however, was that with the normal language drift over so much time we don’t know what many of the words mean in terms of dance. What is a trace or a tret or a rak? So several people went to work on the text. The notes also included music for some of the dances so the music geeks went to work on that. Another problem was that the music did not always correspond to the dances. Two of those people live together with their son in Canada. She is a dance teacher. He is an accomplished period musician. Mistress Emma Dansmeyla and Master Martin Bildner worked on this project for 12 years and are nearly finished with the book and CD set that many of us are waiting for.
A few years into the project they started teaching the dances they had worked out. They released Ly Bens Distonys early on and the SCA dancers embraced it. Later on, with more experience working with the other dances, Emma and Martin would now interpret Ly Bens differently but it is too late we already know it this way so that is what we do. They brought some of the Gresley dances to a Known World Dance and Music Symposium a few years back and I took the classes they offered. I was intrigued and learned as many as I could. Although they also supplied sheet music for the dances they taught, I do not have any live music at my local dance practice so I could not teach them. The next Pennsic and the next Known World Dance and Music symposium I followed Emma and Martin and begged them for recorded music. They were not ready with any of the music for publication but they burned me a copy of a practice CD they use for Emma to teach when Martin cannot come along. Here is a link to one of their handouts
http://rendance.gyges.org/content/seven_gresley_dances/KWDS_VIII_Notes.pdf
Armed with Emma’s magnificent notes and that CD, I started promoting Gresley dances in the Kingdom of Atlantia (SCA). I have been teaching 7 dances from the set for several years now at the University of Atlantia and at events and at Known World, and Pennsic if Emma is not going to be there.
Their book is mostly complete. I now have a copy for proofreading purposes. I hope to learn all the dances from the book and give them feedback as to the learnability of the notes for the proof reading before the final printing. My Lord, Master Stefan of Cambion, will do the spelling and grammar stuff I am not to be trusted with. I have now gotten through and taught the 8 dances Emma describes as easy and several of the moderate ones. Winter should be a good time to work on that. It is a very good thing we built a dance floor in the basement of our house, don’t you think?
I do not have the sources or the research Emma and Martin used. You will need to catch up with them if you have questions regarding the original text or the reconstruction process. I just teach Gresley. You can contact them at:
Emma Dansmeyla (Sarah Scroggie) Sarah.Scroggie AT gmail DOT com
They are of course not the only folks doing this reconstruction. Mistress Judith of Northunbria found Cait Webb and Chris Elmes in Scotland doing the same kind of work with predictably different results. They are both mostly period musicians and the music and dance steps they produced is more complex. They played and taught at the most recent Known World Music and Dance Symposium in Germany last April that Judith autocrated. I took the classes and enjoyed them immensely. They are delightful folks and truly fine musicians. Judith likes the complexity they bring to the Gresley. I, on the other hand, am in it for the joy of the dance, and the pleasure it give me to promote dance to the populace at large, and newbies in particular. That will be easier with Emma and Martin’s work so that is what I will be teaching.
Cait and Chris have published a manual and a CD with 5 or 6 Gresley dances in the mix of other period dances. They have some of the original wording, pdfs of music and downloadable recordings. They can be reached at www.gaita.co.uk or Info@gaita.co.uk
One of my students, Wenllyan Goch, has found a CD with all 26 dances on it. The group is The York Waits. The CD is called Cherwell Thy Wyne, Dances of Fifteenthcentury England from the Gresley manuscript. Wenllyan is trying to get a bulk rate to get more than the one copy of the CD. I will use it until I get an updated and more complete version of the Martin’s music.
I have one other lead. I was told at the last University that a group of Morris dancers under one Rose Moresk (if I have the spelling right) are working up the Gresley dances in somewhat different reconstruction.
When you search for Gresley Dance Manuscript you get 1,640,000 hits. I could spend weeks full time weeding those out for you and make this a better document. I would never catch up since new ones are added all the time. I want to teach dance and do my part of the proofreading.
As always, the historical dances we do are subject to interpretation. Different reconstructors, different teachers, different regions are bound to do them differently, as I am sure was true in period. That adds to the richness of the dance heritage and while it may put you off balance on the dance floor on occasion, we have all been there and no one will mind. Just listen to what the teacher is saying and try to do it their way so we don’t run into each other in the line and all will be well. By the way, it is a good idea to be sure you are all dancing the same version in a set, especially if you go out of your Kingdom.
The dances include 8 easy or very easy dances, 11 moderate, and 7 difficult dances. All of the dances are for 2 or 3 people. This will be very welcome to those of us teaching dance, since very often we find we do not have critical mass for our four couple dances. This will also make for many more dances we can teach at demos to random people from the crowd. The easy ones are really easy. Among the easy dances is New Year which would be boring unless you take it as a danced for drunkards and everybody pretends to be very drunk while they do it. Many of these dances have interesting little quirks, once you get into the moderate and difficult dances. I like the funky hey in Armynn very much. Those moves may take a few tries to get, but they are fun and very worth the effort. I have taken to using some of the 1500 language for calling the dances. For example trett is enterpreted as a single. So trett, retrett, is a single forward and back. Trett, retrett is easier to call than single forward, single back and it feels good to use the original language.
I am delighted to be working with Emma and Martin’s book for many reasons but let me give you a few. They have included three tables of dances at the beginning of the book. One with the dances in the order they appeared in the manuscript. One that gives the dances in alphabetical order, and one for the musicians, giving the source of the music they are using either original from the manuscript or from other sources. They have given an introduction to the book and to each dance describing their process in reconstruction. Best of all is the instruction for each dance. These include, the original text, the musical section for each part of the dance, modern language for their reconstruction and diagrams with little people and arrows to show you what is going on at each step. I love the handouts this produces for teaching.
So, in conclusion. This is really fun to be working on totally new stuff in the dance community. I am having a good time learning and teaching it. I hope to get through my part of the proofreading this winter or at least make a grand attempt. Wish me luck.
In service to the dream,
Evelynne Merrymet
(Evelynn does not maintain an online presence, but she does teach dance at nearly every Atlantia University session, so you can catch up with her there if you’d like to continue the conversation with her about Dances from the Gresley Manuscript. If you leave comments here, I’ll do my best to get those comments to her on your behalf – Sophia)
