Please forgive recent silence
April 30, 2009
The zombies have not eaten our brains. 
We’ve just been busy dealing with work, life, and various domestic crises. Things should return to normal shortly.
In the meantime, take this as an open thread. What’s new in your patch of Janeiteville?
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Well, I’ll report on my recent choreographic experience: I devised the dances for a production of P&P to be given by a small college this weekend. Yup, I, who have never even been in a play, choreographed one. It was a wonderful experience.
First, the director and I were unconsciously brilliant in that he had me start dancing lessons at the first rehearsal: all the actors (few of whom are theater students and including several football players who had never acted before) learned all the dances. This proved indispensable at later rehearsals, when people might be absent and others had to step in, or when the director popped an actor in or out of a set.
Second, I realized quickly that, unlike in the movies, in a play the dances had to be 1) brief and 2) not obtrusive if they were being danced during dialogue. That is, in the movies you can have some blurry dancing and soft music behind a conversation, but in the stage, the audience sees the whole thing all the time. So, in dance terms, I had to shorten things quite a lot: for the ball at Netherfield I gave the dancers just one time through one part of a quadrille figure–and the director asked for it to be shortened even further, from 64 bars down to 32. So I had to sink my historical principles to achieve artistic success.
There are four dances in the play: one is a real figure from 1780, the rest I made up based on such figures. So at Meryton, the actors dance a very skippy dance to show that they are having a good time. At Sir WIlliam Lucas’s, they dance to a very “Scotch” sounding tune and there is a sexy “chase” figure. To show the Bingley’s more up-scale status, at Netherfield they dance a bit of a quadrille, in a square formation, and then a waltz country dance with a “ladies’ triumph” figure (the active couple goes down the set followed by the other man; they turn and come back with the men’s arms held in a triumphant arch over the lady’s head. It is during this dance that Lizzie and Darcy start their long conversation. And it is here that I realized that they had to be popped out of the dance downstage, which meant that the rest of the dancers had to quickly renumber themselves in order to keep on moving.
But the dancing wasn’t the hard thing. The students were delightful and attentive and learned the figures and steps quickly. But here’s what they couldn’t get: the posture.
Many of these kids, like one of my own teens, tend to stand with their shoulders hunched and their head slightly forward–protecting their heart center. You can tell them to stand up straight and what they do is puff their chests out, while keeping the shoulders and head forward–they just don’t have 18th century posture of well-bred entitlement. I even reminded them of the movie Mean Girls–you know when the meanest girl breaks her back and sits in a wheelchair with a metal band around her forehead and running down her spine? That band is an actual 18th century posture device–you can read about it in an 1808 dancing manual. It is very very hard to get a shy young person to stand as if he or she is worth 5,000 a year. It is also difficult to get them to stand or display themselves in a graceful attitude: many of them tended to stand (if girls) with their hands clasped in front of them and (if boys) with their hands clasped behind them.
I haven’t seen the full production yet, so I don’t know if they’ll have made it over these hurdles. And, by the way, the football players picked up on the dance and movement very well–they had great posture and really focused on how to move. The whole experience was delightful.
Great post, Allison T. I was just on a college campus for a modern dance program featuring a young friend of ours. Too bad you didn’t have those women to work with as they were graceful and very limber–well postured, you’d say.
Wow, Allison! What a great experience
. And LOL about the posture–I wouldn’t have thought of that, but you’re right. Most of us aren’t accustomed to having to hold ourselves that way. Really interesting what you pulled off…congrats!
I just received notice that my copy of P&P&Zombies had shipped. Looking forward to reading it and judging it for myself
. Also ordered the DVD of “Lost in Austen,” which I know I love. Can’t wait to see the episodes I missed!!
~Marilyn Brant
According to Jane, Kensington, Oct. ’09
I’ve noticed the posture thing in many a campus stage production. The ones who’ve had dance training as part of their curriculum pay attention to where their heads and shoulders are. Also hands and arms. The ones who haven’t had that tend to schlump around and behave as if dancing were only about the feet. (Not that feet aren’t important, but still!)
I hope all is well, Mags. Thanks for the open thread.
If anyone is interested, I have a P&P quiz up on one of my blogs, http://book-ivorous.blogspot.com/2009/04/quiz-and-giveaway.html. There’s a drawing, too, and a prize for five winners. So far there’ve been few entrants, so chances are good for winning!
Thanks!
I spent Sunday evening
consuming empty calorieswatching “Lost in Austen” on Twin Cities Public Television on Sunday night. In other words, I have done nothing remotely related to Jane Austen in the past week.Ah, for the chance to go back in time and edit one’s previous comments.
Allison, I’d give you the prize for Janeite of the Week! Closest I came was reading this blog every day. Thanks for sharing news of your experience.
Jemima – I visited your Blog and tried to answer your Quiz. It appears it won’t let me post unless I create a Blog to establish my own account, which I don’t want to do. Perhaps others are having the same problem? Or perhaps I’m completely clueless on this Friday? Very sorry, because I believe I know all the answers!
I spent Sunday evening watching “Lost in Austen” on Twin Cities Public Television on Sunday night. In other words, I have done nothing remotely related to Jane Austen in the past week.
Oh that made me chuckle!
Deb – Thanks SO MUCH for letting me know. I had no idea, but I do think I have now fixed it. I hope you get a chance to visit again and post your answers! Good luck!
I just finished reading Rob’s “Out of Body Experiences…” and loved it!
I hope all is well, Mags. Thanks for the open thread!
Wow, Allison! What a very cool experience.
I just finished reading Charlotte, Julia Barrett’s continuation of Sanditon and found it very disappointing. The plot (or lack there of) was all over the place once Barrett picked up the story. She did a great deal of explaining characters’ motives and mental states instead showing them really accomplish anything.
Here I did not get to know Charlotte as I had in Sanditon; she wasn’t a fully drawn character. And the romance between her and Sidney was a series of short encounters, and even shorter conversations…not much opportunity for the two to get to know each other very well and fall in love. (The end was disappointing with Sidney coming to see her and “had as much as an hour gone by, before his partiality for Charlotte was understood by every Heywood old enough to notice?” Surely we could been told a bit more about the meeting between the two, perhaps actually witness it?)
I was surprised by Clara Brereton longing for Sir Edward when in Jane’s fragment she seemed aware of his real character and had no interest in him. And he didn’t seem to be quite the cad he was supposed to be.
While we’ll never know just where Jane would have gone with this fragment, I have a hard time believing she would have made bootlegging and gambling major plot points in the story.
Two out of five stars.
+1 to Rob. (If you really want to edit something, just let me know.)
Thanks for the good wishes–all is well, just very very very busy! Also the premises of the fabulous high-tech AustenBlog World Headquarters will be changing in a couple of weeks. Just in time, as we have suffered another ceiling leak (some may remember one from a year or so ago) and this time it’s really gross. (Toilet leaking into kitchen, where another meal will never, ever be prepared or consumed by your Editrix. Never. Ever.) Nonetheless, the landlord insists on showing the place to prospective tenants, though there is a LARGE MOLDY HOLE IN THE CEILING OF THE KITCHEN. THAT SMELLS. So we have often to absent ourself from the premises (and frankly under the circumstances I’m not all that keen on hanging around any other time). But we think now he has a sucker on the leash, er, another tenant lined up, so we’ll be concentrating on packing and stuff now. We’re engaged in a great Zen purging of Stuff which is quite enjoyable. We have way too much Stuff and we’re now getting rid of a lot of it. Ommmmmm. Anybody want to buy a funky 50s kitchen set cheap? Needs a bit of TLC.
Rosa – I haven’t read Barrett’s continuation of the story and, based on your comments and that fragement, seriously doubt I ever will. I found the version of Sanditon, finished by ‘A Lady’, so satisfying anyway, I don’t think any other continuation could live up to it.
In my patch of Janeiteville, we’ve rewatched Emma (Beckinsale version), playing around a lot on a new (quite good) Dutch-language Austen site, and re-reading the superb Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman trilogy as I’ve gotten quite a few of the regular visitors there ‘infected’ with it. We’re at the delightful stage of starting to discuss the story and what we love about it (everyone so far three thumbs up), and I needed to refresh my own memory regarding some of the minor details. Only thing is, on this go-round (like, my fifth time reading it or something) I picked up for the first time a major mistake in continuity. So big, I actually emailed the author to point it out!
Mags – hoping you are out of cesspit and into more, eh, hygienic quarters asap! I trust you’ve already found a new place? And your Zen purging of stuff comment really rings a bell. It makes me rather an odd ball out among my family and aquaintance, but I LOVE throwing things away!
From ROPemberley, more set photos from Emma with JLM as Knightley:
http://pemberley.com/bin/emma/emma.cgi?read=30757
My disappointment continues unabated. As someone pointed out, it’s Edmund Bertram without the lipstick….