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Writing about characters doing period dances is still rather new to me. I shied away from scenes involving them for a long time since I had never done any of them and didn't really know anything about them. Always I had references to the fact that people were dancing, but it was never the characters of my book, always people in the background. I tended to have my characters standing off in a corner and just talking.

Recently, though, I've learned a number of period European dances and gained some insight into how they work and how easy it is to carry on a conversation while dancing them. So, I've tried twice now to include such dancing in my writing.

Here's a site that explains a little about Alman dances. It might be useful.

The first attempt was modeled on the Black Alman and had the characters dancing the dance while carrying on a conversation. It ended up rather clumsy. I'm not fond of the way that the descriptions of the motions slowed down the conversation. But I had also originally tried describing the whole dance before actually going into their conversation and that had an odd disconnect. The effect was the same as just having them standing in a corner and talking while other people were dancing. It just didn't work right.

A couple nights ago, I tried again with a dance called the Horses' Bransle (which, for the purposes of the story, I renamed the Centaurs' Bransle). It's far more repetitive than that Black Alman and allowed for a bit of middle ground between having it interrupt the conversation and have it be disconnected from the characters, but I'm still not entirely pleased with the outcome.

Has anyone else tried to write dances into their works? Any good ideas?

Berz.

There are technical ways of describing dances, just like there is for describing a fight. But the problem is that the more technical you get, the more confusing it gets to people who aren't familiar with the terms. Saying something like "the dance consisted of sets of two alman doubles interspersed with rounds of siding" may be a good description, but it's just going to send someone not in the know reaching for google, instead of reading the story, or worse, simply setting it aside as boring. It's just like describing a fight by saying "he held one sword sotto mano and lashed out with a vicious moulline with the other."

One way of dealing with this had occurred to me early on. I have one character who does not know how to dance being taught by another, who does. I had originally thought to write out the scene where he was teaching her the basic steps that are the building blocks of a great number of period dances and telling her the terms. In that way, her education was also going to become the reader's education. But the scene was clumsy and dull as hell, so I chopped it.

Here's what I have at the moment for my most recent attempt. It's a Forgotten Realms fanfiction, so the characters aren't my own, originally. I'm just playing with them.



The dance I'm lifting is called the Horses' Bransle. It's a very simple dance, which is why I chose it. Plus, I just love dancing it in real life. It lets you meet all sorts of fun people. Sort of the period version of speed dating, which is another reason I chose it. Arilyn ends up having short conversations with a number of random guys which was an element needed for the story line.

I'm mainly concerned with the portion of the dance where the stomping happens and then the two circles travel in opposite directions a half a space each (resulting in the two circles shifting one partner over). I'm not certain I managed to convey that up until then, they were dancing in the same direction at the same time and then switched to moving opposite each other. And I'm also not sure how to go about making that clearer without making it sound dull.

Berz.

Well, there's lots of videos of people playing the tune, but not much in the way of people actually dancing it.

Here's one of a different version of the dance, where everyone is in a single circle and you actually don't change partners at all. It was apparently recorded at Pennsic 36, so these are SCAdians. Please ignore the Hollywoodesque bellydancer.

That's, unfortunately, the only version of it that I can find on YouTube and it is, alas, not the version I learned and am using in the story. But you might get some idea of the dance steps from it and it is still the same tune.

EDIT: Found another one, but this, too, is not the version I learned. This has the men on the inside circle, and the two circles dance in opposite directions all the time. xp

Here's a video of another dance nicknamed "Toss the Wench." It was originally called Official Bransle. You might know the tune as that of the Christmas carol "Ding, Dong Merrily on High." I dance this one a bit faster and it's so much fun!

And just for reference if it comes up,here's a video of the Black Alman, which is the other dance I've tried to describe in a piece of writing.

Berz.

I gotta tell ya, I've never written about dancing in any of my stories. At least not yet anyway. It's funny cuz I think a dance scene could be written much easier for me than a battle scene. I suppose maybe it would be just as tough cuz I don't know much about dancing so... don't expect me to post much here. mrgreen