Harmony Week Retrospective
Aug. 5th, 2023 11:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sorcyressSo hi, I have not written here since like Monday! Here's the quick and dirty version of how being first-time crew at Harmony Week went:
[Contextual note: Apparently there are people in my life who I refer to with first-and-last-name almost always, I've censored last names because I don't actually want these people's bosses to find out they're my nemesis or whatever. I think this looks stupid, but I think calling them by just their first name is _weird_ and refuse.]
*Morris was super fun! At least, queer fuckin' Morris being taught by Crispin is fun! I assume other Morris is also fun, but that's a pretty good First Morris, really.
*Okay, I mean, it was _really cool_ actually to be on the other side of my number-one-favourite-to-teach ESC Scottish Technique class. Like, I love teaching that class because it's the one where I am teaching very basic SCD steps, but it's to a bunch of people who are all fairly familiar with ECD and Contra and so like...I don't have to teach choreo at _all_, I can just focus on the shit that's different and it's awesome. And now here we were, eight dancers from like seven different teams/traditions (and by "morris traditions" I here include "rapper" and "highland") and we all knew How To Dance, we just didn't know exactly how to dance like this. So good to be in that sort of learning space! So sharp!!!
*I did also continue going to Joanna's ECD for all, and it continued to be delightful! I had a couple low moments on some of the harder days1, but mostly it was a really good space, both for actual dancing (so good!) and for squirrelling away teacher things into the back of my brain.
Fuck, and I forgot to tell Myles about the thing I noticed about major and minor sets and how I'm gonna start calling hands four "minimus" just because I am an absolute _tool_2.
*There were...so many. attractive queer people. So many. _so many_. And actually in a range of ages, which was Real Good! Like, yeah, lots of queer youngsters, but also people my age and mom's age! I'm super into this.
But the attractive part started to get to be a problem as I started to meet/get-to-know more people and realized that Oh No, Everyone Is Cute. That whole post about types from the other week? yeah. _yeah_. Anyways, that's enough of this bullet point since I didn't even do post-pub night makeouts with anyone...
*Speaking of pub night tho, one of the adorable babbyqueers was REALLY EXCITED to play with hair, and just about exploded with glee when they saw mine. So I spent almost the entirety of my time at pub night --easily two hours-- sitting on the floor in front of them while they put my hair into double french fishtail braids, and then pinned it into a pretzel knot. So because I was curious and asked for details, I now know how to do a fishtail braid (although I'm not at all good at it yet)
Also that was...Wednesday? I think pub was Wednesday. The pretzel-pinning lasted until Friday-morn, and the fishtail braids are still in. I'll probably take them out tomorrow sometime, but I am very pleased by having my hair Look Cool for several days running.
*I led _two songs_ at pub night which is a fucking record. One was while it was still pretty crowded, and someone did a few verses of "The Ants Go Marching". So in the moment after, I pipe up with "well if we're singing children's songs" and launch into Mary3. I did four verses, then Mo and Mog each piped in with a verse which felt great (and Mog's I'd never heard before, so that's been added to the file).
The second song I led was much later, when things were winding down, and I take it as a huge badge of pride that _I_, weird fucky disaster songchilde who believes in volume over melody any day of the week, was able to lead a song that made Laurie T***** smile! It was Circle Game, which isn't as sad as the normal sort of stuff that gets her going, but it was still very pleasant to see some of the reactions in the circle.
I think I've decided to try and go to Youth Trad Song weekend this year? This sounds like a fucking terrifying sentence to say out loud, but there you go, I think I've hit a point where I'd really enjoy it. Ten bonus points if I can find my original handwritten songbooks before then4
I also sang the Skunk Song for a couple people at lunch at one point, and shared some extra verses for Rose Rose with Kevin-what-led-it the day after pub night and this is almost as fucking weird as the morris parts of the week.
*Oh, speaking of Laurie T****, I've had such a delightful time at ESC and Harmony hanging out with her. She is my nemesis! But also my cake-buddy (it was _so satisfying_ to slice the cream cheese frosting off the carrot cake and hand it to her as she sliced off the cake from hers and handed it to me). She was working on a crankie throughout camp, which put a bug in my brain that you can just like...make those? You can just make those. So this is never actually gonna happen, but what *if* I made a trio of crankies for The Wendy Trilogy?
*which reminds me that Crispin was advocating for me to call the trios in Dashing White Sargent "thruples" instead and I can't decide if I hate it or love it.
*Oh yeah, I called a mini-Scottish ceilidh at the last night party, encouraged heavily by Susie P***** and Elena and Lucretia. I think we did four dances - Flowers to Edinburgh, Dashing White, Monymusk, and Strip the Willow. You can tell I didn't set this program because neither Monymusk nor Strip the Willow are _ever_ on my mental list of "good" Scottish dances, but I will admit that Susie absolutely knows her stuff, and they were both pretty good for the energy and party we had.
Also at that party, Owen gave a dramatic reading in a lovely Scottish Brogue of the tale of Hamish Iain McMouse. My protestations that that fucking mouse has been dead for fifty-nine years were overruled and now people think that I should ensure at least one of the multiple dances written in his honor gets danced at Scots PW next year for his 60th deathiversiry. I hate this so much.
*(One of my favourite conversational themes this past week was Laurie T***** introducing "what is your most strongly held opinion about something that Does Not Matter". Her starting example, which is a very strong bond between us, is that the Maryland state flag is the best fucking flag, bar none. But anyways, my real most strongly held opinion about something that Does Not Matter is that it is _bullshit ridiculous_ that we have a _nearly sixty year old dead mouse_ hanging on the camphouse wall.)
*There were probably other really good things this past week (Jack! Dave! Infinite just-hatched baby spiders! Nature walk! Tiny turtle! Blues dancing to live music! Cottey House party! Boys in little red dresses who are dating Ben5!) but I'm starting to flag. I genuinely considered going to bed at like...nine today because changeover days are _exhausting_ but I'm glad to have tried to capture some of this down. Goodnight!
~Sor
MOOP!
1: There was much talk about camp Wednesday, which may or may not actually hit you on a Wednesday, but is the day when it all just becomes A Lot. Bracken and Lisa K***** and some other folks sang a song at lunch which went through the different forms of Big Sad and how to defeat them ("if you think your friends all hate you, recall that half of them would date you, if you think your friends all hate you take a nap")
2: Look, in Scottish set, the major set is nearly always eight people I HAVE GOOD REASONS FOR MY FUCKERY
3: "HURRAH SAID MARY! HURRAH SAID THE LAMB! HURRAH SAID THE UNION BOYS WHO DID NOT GIVE A DAMN! And everywhere that Mary went that lamb was sure to go. SHOUTING THE BATTLE CRY OF FREE-DOM!"
4: I realized that at both Wyo and Illchester, I had periods of time where I handwrote bunches of songs down so I'd have the lyrics. Which is just the thing everyone does. My organizey-brain really likes the idea of doing it into a binder so that it can be easily re-sorted/re-ordered, but I've been saying I should do that with my bluelines for like six years now, so who even knows.
5: "I'd only have two nickels, but it's still weird that it's happened twice"
Real fuckin' awesome, actually
[Contextual note: Apparently there are people in my life who I refer to with first-and-last-name almost always, I've censored last names because I don't actually want these people's bosses to find out they're my nemesis or whatever. I think this looks stupid, but I think calling them by just their first name is _weird_ and refuse.]
*Morris was super fun! At least, queer fuckin' Morris being taught by Crispin is fun! I assume other Morris is also fun, but that's a pretty good First Morris, really.
*Okay, I mean, it was _really cool_ actually to be on the other side of my number-one-favourite-to-teach ESC Scottish Technique class. Like, I love teaching that class because it's the one where I am teaching very basic SCD steps, but it's to a bunch of people who are all fairly familiar with ECD and Contra and so like...I don't have to teach choreo at _all_, I can just focus on the shit that's different and it's awesome. And now here we were, eight dancers from like seven different teams/traditions (and by "morris traditions" I here include "rapper" and "highland") and we all knew How To Dance, we just didn't know exactly how to dance like this. So good to be in that sort of learning space! So sharp!!!
*I did also continue going to Joanna's ECD for all, and it continued to be delightful! I had a couple low moments on some of the harder days1, but mostly it was a really good space, both for actual dancing (so good!) and for squirrelling away teacher things into the back of my brain.
Fuck, and I forgot to tell Myles about the thing I noticed about major and minor sets and how I'm gonna start calling hands four "minimus" just because I am an absolute _tool_2.
*There were...so many. attractive queer people. So many. _so many_. And actually in a range of ages, which was Real Good! Like, yeah, lots of queer youngsters, but also people my age and mom's age! I'm super into this.
But the attractive part started to get to be a problem as I started to meet/get-to-know more people and realized that Oh No, Everyone Is Cute. That whole post about types from the other week? yeah. _yeah_. Anyways, that's enough of this bullet point since I didn't even do post-pub night makeouts with anyone...
*Speaking of pub night tho, one of the adorable babbyqueers was REALLY EXCITED to play with hair, and just about exploded with glee when they saw mine. So I spent almost the entirety of my time at pub night --easily two hours-- sitting on the floor in front of them while they put my hair into double french fishtail braids, and then pinned it into a pretzel knot. So because I was curious and asked for details, I now know how to do a fishtail braid (although I'm not at all good at it yet)
Also that was...Wednesday? I think pub was Wednesday. The pretzel-pinning lasted until Friday-morn, and the fishtail braids are still in. I'll probably take them out tomorrow sometime, but I am very pleased by having my hair Look Cool for several days running.
*I led _two songs_ at pub night which is a fucking record. One was while it was still pretty crowded, and someone did a few verses of "The Ants Go Marching". So in the moment after, I pipe up with "well if we're singing children's songs" and launch into Mary3. I did four verses, then Mo and Mog each piped in with a verse which felt great (and Mog's I'd never heard before, so that's been added to the file).
The second song I led was much later, when things were winding down, and I take it as a huge badge of pride that _I_, weird fucky disaster songchilde who believes in volume over melody any day of the week, was able to lead a song that made Laurie T***** smile! It was Circle Game, which isn't as sad as the normal sort of stuff that gets her going, but it was still very pleasant to see some of the reactions in the circle.
I think I've decided to try and go to Youth Trad Song weekend this year? This sounds like a fucking terrifying sentence to say out loud, but there you go, I think I've hit a point where I'd really enjoy it. Ten bonus points if I can find my original handwritten songbooks before then4
I also sang the Skunk Song for a couple people at lunch at one point, and shared some extra verses for Rose Rose with Kevin-what-led-it the day after pub night and this is almost as fucking weird as the morris parts of the week.
*Oh, speaking of Laurie T****, I've had such a delightful time at ESC and Harmony hanging out with her. She is my nemesis! But also my cake-buddy (it was _so satisfying_ to slice the cream cheese frosting off the carrot cake and hand it to her as she sliced off the cake from hers and handed it to me). She was working on a crankie throughout camp, which put a bug in my brain that you can just like...make those? You can just make those. So this is never actually gonna happen, but what *if* I made a trio of crankies for The Wendy Trilogy?
*which reminds me that Crispin was advocating for me to call the trios in Dashing White Sargent "thruples" instead and I can't decide if I hate it or love it.
*Oh yeah, I called a mini-Scottish ceilidh at the last night party, encouraged heavily by Susie P***** and Elena and Lucretia. I think we did four dances - Flowers to Edinburgh, Dashing White, Monymusk, and Strip the Willow. You can tell I didn't set this program because neither Monymusk nor Strip the Willow are _ever_ on my mental list of "good" Scottish dances, but I will admit that Susie absolutely knows her stuff, and they were both pretty good for the energy and party we had.
Also at that party, Owen gave a dramatic reading in a lovely Scottish Brogue of the tale of Hamish Iain McMouse. My protestations that that fucking mouse has been dead for fifty-nine years were overruled and now people think that I should ensure at least one of the multiple dances written in his honor gets danced at Scots PW next year for his 60th deathiversiry. I hate this so much.
*(One of my favourite conversational themes this past week was Laurie T***** introducing "what is your most strongly held opinion about something that Does Not Matter". Her starting example, which is a very strong bond between us, is that the Maryland state flag is the best fucking flag, bar none. But anyways, my real most strongly held opinion about something that Does Not Matter is that it is _bullshit ridiculous_ that we have a _nearly sixty year old dead mouse_ hanging on the camphouse wall.)
*There were probably other really good things this past week (Jack! Dave! Infinite just-hatched baby spiders! Nature walk! Tiny turtle! Blues dancing to live music! Cottey House party! Boys in little red dresses who are dating Ben5!) but I'm starting to flag. I genuinely considered going to bed at like...nine today because changeover days are _exhausting_ but I'm glad to have tried to capture some of this down. Goodnight!
~Sor
MOOP!
1: There was much talk about camp Wednesday, which may or may not actually hit you on a Wednesday, but is the day when it all just becomes A Lot. Bracken and Lisa K***** and some other folks sang a song at lunch which went through the different forms of Big Sad and how to defeat them ("if you think your friends all hate you, recall that half of them would date you, if you think your friends all hate you take a nap")
2: Look, in Scottish set, the major set is nearly always eight people I HAVE GOOD REASONS FOR MY FUCKERY
3: "HURRAH SAID MARY! HURRAH SAID THE LAMB! HURRAH SAID THE UNION BOYS WHO DID NOT GIVE A DAMN! And everywhere that Mary went that lamb was sure to go. SHOUTING THE BATTLE CRY OF FREE-DOM!"
4: I realized that at both Wyo and Illchester, I had periods of time where I handwrote bunches of songs down so I'd have the lyrics. Which is just the thing everyone does. My organizey-brain really likes the idea of doing it into a binder so that it can be easily re-sorted/re-ordered, but I've been saying I should do that with my bluelines for like six years now, so who even knows.
5: "I'd only have two nickels, but it's still weird that it's happened twice"
no subject
on 2023-08-06 03:25 am (UTC)no subject
on 2023-08-06 03:47 am (UTC)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwbzxemJZIc