SCA Dance Cheat Sheets

1.2: Format

The format of the dances is interpreted like this:

 1- 2  Touch your toes,
 3- 4   touch your nose.

The numbers on the left margin are measure numbers. Generally there are two ``beats'' or ``steps'' per measure. The text on the right describes the action during those measures. Periods indicate the end of a musical phrase, and the instructions are also indented to show the ends of phrases. It's very important for both the dance master and dancers to be able to fit the steps to the phrases.

Some other sets of dance cheat sheets use a larger unit of counting corresponding to one double step, which is often two measures of music. This sort of notation would give numbers approximately half that of mine.

The descriptions often include instructions such as ``face partner, take both hands, and double up the hall.'' In general, there is no time allocated for facing your partner and taking hands; the time for the entire movement is the time taken by one double.

Some readers might make the point that it would be difficult to learn a dance by merely looking at these instructions, because they are so sparse. This is probably true; however, if you've seen a dance danced, these cheat sheets are probably sufficient. If you haven't, then you can probably find another source which gives more detailed instructions.

The version numbers start at 1.0 when I first publish a dance. The version gets incremented by less than one if a minor change is made, or by a whole number if a significant change is made.