From: justin@inmet.COM (Justin du Coeur MKA Mark Waks)
Subject: Arts Crowns; Dances
Organization: The Internet
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 22:10:08 GMT

Re: Self-Judged Art & Arts Crowns

Branwen writes:
>Not only do I believe that an A&S judge should be able to enter his
>or her work, I feel that the judges of any A&S competition should consist
>*only* of the entrants to that competition. What better way to decide 
>how good a work is than by having the entrants gather together and discuss
>how they did their work, what their sources were, and so on? And the
>"arts weebles" would be found out soon enough.

An excellent point, and one I quite agree with. Indeed, learning to
sensibly judge the work of others may well be more educational than
producing your own work...

Not to revive a long-deceased equine, but I simply *have* to note an
interesting point I read today in Thinkwell (the Society philosophy
newsletter). Master Giles Hill of Sweetwater, from Caid, wrote in a
note about the long-debated issue of having an "arts Crown" -- that
is, an alternate Royalty-selection method based on an Arts comp
instead of a tourney. This idea has come up many times on the Rialto,
and always been shouted down by (among other things) the argument that
having a panel of judges deciding the next Monarch is a Bad Thing.

Giles' point is that one could instead have the judging done *by the
entrants* instead of by a separate panel. They did an experiment,
running three judgings in a competition: 1) a traditional panel of
judges; 2) the entrants judging all entries except their own; 3) the
entrants judging themselves.

Quoting Giles:

"At the end of the day, we discovered that the first track and the
second had produced the exact same results, and the third track top
two entrants had each placed the other in first place, and themselves
in second."

This indicates, to me at least, that separate judges aren't really
necessary for an arts competition. This, in turn, indicates that an
"Arts Crown" could be judged by the entrants themselves, collectively
evaluating each others' skill. This is *much* more analogous to
the way that our current Crowns are fought (where one's skill is
tested against that of a set of other entrants, and the decisions
are left to the judgement and honor of the candidates), and I
find it considerably less objectionable than the "panel of judges"
approach. (It's not a perfect analogy, but it's not half bad...)

Of course, there are other potential problems with an Arts Crown,
including the basic one that it just doesn't fit some peoples' idea
of what being a King is all about. Still, it's a neat and simple
answer to an oft-stated objection...


Re: Period Dance

Vashti writes:
>Actually, most of our dances come from VERY late  --- 14th c. basse danses
> ... are about the earliest things we have documentation, steps,
>and music for

A few quibbles: it's actually even worse than that. The earliest
choreographies are actually from the early 15th century...

>(the precursers to the pavanne, but much more difficult to do)

It should be noted that, while *some* basse dances are complicated,
many others aren't. The considerable majority of the basse dance
choreographies we have, while perhaps a little harder than a pavan,
are a *lot* simpler than a typical English Country dance...

(In an over-simplified nutshell: the Italian basse dances, from the
early to mid 15th century, are a bit complex; the French and
Burgundian ones (which we have many, many more of), from the late
15th and early 16th centuries, are mostly pretty simple...)

Of course, the areas that *are* fond of basse dance tend to get
bored with the easy French ones, and do instead the harder Italian
ones. But that doesn't mean that there aren't easier ones out there...

(Plug time. The Letter of Dance, over the course of the current
volume (issues 8-16), is going to be tracing the history of the
easier basse dance forms. We've already printed a translation of
Moderne, one of the major sources, as well as a reconstruction of
Arbeau's basse dance, the last appearance of the form. Over the
next few issues, we'll be running a translation of the Brussels
manuscript & Toulouze (a pair of nearly identical sources), a
transcription of Copeland (an English source), some discussion
of what we can figure about the evolution of the form from these
sources, and some reconstructions. By the end, we should have 
enough info out there for you to take any of the couple hundred
easy French/Burgundian basse dances, and simply dance it from
the original. Write to me for subscription/back issue info...)

>And that great old well-beloved classic dance, "The Hole In the Wall",
>done throughout the Society, was first published in 1720 (early
>Regency period)!

Actually, HiTW is a shade earlier than that -- I've seen documentation
tracing it to 1698. Still well out of period, though...

> [estampies and such]
>Anyone out there with more information? Please share it with us!

Indeed. It would be so nice to have even *one* documentably medieval
dance...

				-- Justin du Coeur
				   Editor, The Letter of Dance

Random Quote du Jour:

"45. The reason I sound uneducated is that William F. Buckley, Jr. is stealing
     the larger words from my vocabulary."
		-- from "New Improved Delusions"