All right, it's time to put it all together! I'm going to begin with the solo version.
The music for Cupid's Gavotte, as noted in the first post in this series, is in 4/4 and has a musical pattern of seven strains, some of which are duplicates, which fit the dance nicely:
Music Dance
A 16 bars 16 bars #1 (4x to right, 4x to left)
B 8 bars 8 bars #2 (4x alternating right and left)
C 8 bars 8 bars #3 (4x alternating right and left)
D* 8 bars (vivace) 8 bars #4 (4x alternating right and left)
E 8 bars 8 bars #5 (4x)
F 8 bars 8 bars #6 (4x alternating right and left)
* 8 bars (vivace) 8 bars #7 (4x alternating right and left)
G** 16 bars 16 bars #1 (4x to right), #7 (4x alt. right and left to exit
80 bars 80 bars
* The D strain and the second half of the F strain are the same as the B strain
** The G strain is the same as the A strain
My recording adds a four-bar introduction for practical reasons.
The above pattern is precisely as given by Walters. For solo performance, I would make minor changes in the performance of Step #1, which travels to the side. Doing four in a row to the right and then four in a row to the left is just not very interesting, especially with only one dancer to watch. And unless the stage is very large, it will carry the dancer right across it and off the other side.
If Step #1 is used as an entrance, I would perform it four times to the right to get to center stage, followed by 4x alternating left and right. That makes it right x4, left, right, left, right. That actually flows nicely into Step #2 with no weight change needed -- it's actually smoother than the original at that point, though of course there were extra weight changes earlier.
If the dancer is walking on stage during the introduction instead, I would change the pattern to right x2, left x2, right, left, right, left. With that pattern or the original one, there will have to be a weight change at the end to free the right foot to start Step #2.
At the end of the dance, Step #1 four times to the right takes the dancer to the edge of the performance area, and during the four pas de basque she can exit completely.
I am not going to rewrite every single step-sequence; refer back to the first four posts for details. But I will write out a script for the whole dance using my mnemonics and with the changes in Step #1 described above:
#1 "grape vine-and-three, sweep, tap...tap..." (4R, L, R, L, R or 2R, 2L, R, L, R, L)
#2 "step-hop, step-hop, step-hop-hop-hop" (R, L, R, L)
#3 "point...point...back-side-front-lift" (R, L, R, L)
#4 "step-close-point, step-close-point, side-turn-step-point" (R, L, R, L)
#5 "back-hopturn-back-close, back-hopturn-back-close" (4x)
#6 "side-back-side-spin, point...point..." (R, L, R, L)
#7 "pas-de-basque, pas-de-basque, side-turn-step-point" (R, L, R, L)
#1 "grape vine-and-three, sweep, tap...tap..." (4R)
#7 "pas-de-basque, pas-de-basque, side-turn-step-point" (R, L, R, L, exiting)
Given that none of the individual step-sequences are terribly difficult, the only real challenge is memorizing the sequence!
Next up: interesting tweaks for four or eight dancers!
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.