Form
Each English country dance is based around a fixed series of movements, called figures, which are uniquely paired with a piece of music. The choreography dictates the interactions between partners and between couples in a set. A set is a group of couples, most commonly two or three, but sometimes four, that interact during a single progression. Rarely, dances call for five or six couples in a set. Most commonly, English country dances are longways and progressive. Multiple sets of couples form two long lines, along which couples travel at the end of each iteration of figures, meeting new couples and repeating the series of figures many times. Alternately, dances can be finite, a set forming an independent unit within which the series of figures are repeated a limited number of times. These dances are often non-progressive, each couple retaining their original positions.
Read more about this topic: English Country Dance
Famous quotes containing the word form:
“An uprising would punish only the country, and that is out of the question. But there is yet another approach, the most effective form of resistance: contemptuous compliance.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“Human development is a form of chronological unfairness, since late-comers are able to profit by the labors of their predecessors without paying the same price.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“It is a conquest when we can lift ourselves above the annoyances of circumstances over which we have no control; but it is a greater victory when we can make those circumstances our helpers,—when we can appreciate the good there is in them. It has often seemed to me as if Life stood beside me, looking me in the face, and saying, “Child, you must learn to like me in the form in which you see me, before I can offer myself to you in any other aspect.””
—Lucy Larcom (1824–1893)