Which happened last weekend - it's been a real flurry of dancing, and I'm settling down in London this weekend, with a bit more dancing, but a whole Sunday dedicated to sorting out stuff back at the flat and getting on with Quantitative Methods for Business. Speaking of which, I'll be using stats shortly, collecting and analysing the exam returns from a group of colleges accredited by us.
Anyway: Grand Bal. I ended up leaving very early on Saturday morning, catching the 6:30 bus to Oxford, dropping my suit off with Leyla (and leaving my boots in her room, which raised eyebrows when her parents came round!), and then getting a lift with Andy Letcher to the Bal itself. The lift was wonderful - I think we chatted all the way there about all sorts of random things like health and safety, 3/2 hornpipes and how to dance them, and whether it would be possible to do a Gotan Project with French traditional music. The first workshop was a bit underwhelming - being shown how to shuffle round the floor in Auvergne bourree style by Sarah Capel for an hour and a half - but after lunch was a huge improvement, with lively group Auvergne bourrees, odd mazurkas, and a lovely Breton workshop with Andre Liorzou. The Breton workshop he ran was a real revelation, showing how to drive the dance along without theatrics - though it helped that I was alongside Maya, lead singer for Dragonsfly, a good deal of the time. She's got a lovely way of putting a swing into the dance, completely within the rhythm but complementing it, and having her singing the harmonies to some of Serge's songs was such a lovely experience I just shut up and listened.
It's always difficult for me to talk about the music that I've danced to (and even that which I've listened to), as I'm focussed enough on the other person, and the feel of the moment, that when it's good I don't remember it very well. Really, I remember my dances with other people better - and I'll put in a coruscating combative two-time bourree with Andy Letcher, and a really show-offy Auvergne bourree (clicking my heels three feet up in the air at one point, or gliding round each other, almost staring each other out, a centimetre from contact but never touching) with Sarah Capel, while her husband, Hervé Capel, played the piano accordion beautifully on the stage. Some of the best Breton dancing I've done, as well, a hundred and fifty of us twining in and out around each other, with a driving rhythm or a slow calm, and a sense of unison that I put down to Serge's excellent teaching earlier in the day. Some lovely schottisches and mazurkas with Ruth, as well!
Finally, they stopped, around one in the morning, leaving us all wanting more, but eventually we wandered off to our cars, and in mine, Adam and Mary's case, to our tents. The campsite was in a lovely setting, a long line of tents and caravans on the bank of a stream, far enough outside Bath for us to hear owls hooting from both sides of the clearing, and only the noise from the wind rushing through the trees, and the rain and leaves falling on the tent. I went with both my summerweight and my down sleeping bag - but in the end it was warm enough that my silk inner and the summerweight were pretty much enough.
Woke up in the morning with real Eraserhead hair thanks to having washed it inadvertently the night before. Never mind, pressing it down while in the shower calmed it, and then out to breakfast, pack up my stuff, pack up the tent in the rain, and head off for a morning of workshop. More Breton with Serge, learning how to turn the simplest gavotte (1-2-3-hop,1-2-3-hop) into more complex ones (1-2-3and4-5-6-7-hop, 1-2-3-4and5-6-7-hop), then on to the kost ar'choad and the ficelle, and some variations. Oh, and singing! Serge taught us a Rond St Vincent and a laridee, both of which I've been practicing for the next time I'm near a French session, particularly the tune for the Rond St Vincent. That singing, and the experience at Pentreffest, has made me really want to work on my voice - it is such a wonderful thing to be able to sing well, and I've got the volume already!
The lunchtime session was as good as ever - and some polskas played by Chris for me to show off to, and grab unsuspecting ladies out of the crowd to twirl around. I should also mention another couple of silly two-time bourrees with Andy, and some lovely waltzing/mazurkaing/bourreeing with Ruth. The concert (when it came, and everyone was having such a good time in the lobby they weren't really eager for it) was a little odd, but then it always has been. The music is for dancing, and it often gets played very fast in concert, or with additions like Sarah Capel coming on stage and dancing (very well) to some of Hervé's bourrées. Still, it was wonderful to sit down and listen to it, and hear the complexities I mostly ignored during the dancing the night before.
I drove home with Adam and Mary, which was good, to catch up and supply news of my own, and to act as a mini-DJ, playing Gram Parsons, bits of Ethiopiques and the Gotan Project's latest CD, Lunatico, through their speakers via the radio transmitter I attached to my MP3 player. Then to Tushari, Leyla and Jen's, to find Mum in residence - just back from Honduras and content with how her preliminary research for her PhD had gone. Then, off to the Half Moon with Tushari, for a medium-good session, only one excruciating song, and some lovely schottisches and mazurkas to remind me of the weekend.
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