Impertinence

Описание: While the basic instructions for Fried Herman's Impertinence appear in her book Potters' Porch, insight into how Impertinence should be danced comes from other parts of her writing and from her teaching.

For instance, in the A part following the right or left hand turns by the corner dancers, when those dancers would then dance left or right shoulder around a standing neighbor, Fried would always make three points, nowhere written down:

As you dance right shoulder around a "post," your right hand leads you there--does not hug the side of your body or hang limply but is extended dancingly in the direction of movement. Same with the left hand in a left shoulder dance around. In Fried's words, the hands are dancing (in the video, watch Lucy Weinstein, who uses her hands this way naturally and beautifully).

Also you are moving with other dancers in neighboring sets, and thus should match their moves to dance in straight lines. But most important of all (and Fried addresses this point at the beginning of the video), when you pass another dancer from another set during this dance around in A1 and A2, you should acknowledge them (a slight nod and/or smile will do); it is a key moment of social connection and one of the dance's signature moves.

In the back-to-back followed by the face-en-face in B1, Fried always made the point that dancers do not adjust to face each other head on after the back-to-back but remain offset, so that the face-en-face can occur without fear of a collision. She alludes to this instruction in The Ins and Outs (Serendipity), her dance pattern used for teaching face-en-face.

Why is it that in B2, same-sex neighbors set right and left instead of "lead to wall," as the instructions in Potters' Porch indicate? In her introductory essay in Serendipity, Fried explains: She asks at one point, Is This the Right Dance for Your Party? "Maybe the dance takes too much space, or includes a figure that's too tiring. Would it be right for you to change the dance? The answer is yes, as long as you don't rip the fabric of the dance or go against its movement or melody.

Let me give an example.... The direction for B2 [of Impertinence] states: Lead neighbor out to the wall. You may not have enough space to lead out. To make the dance work, you change the direction to: Neighbors, facing out of the set with inside hands join, set R & L."

And of course that is what you see in the video and frequently on the dance floor when Impertinence is done.

I would like to commend my fellow dancers and acknowledge the fine playing of Joyce Crouch, Mark Eisenberg, and Naomi Morse. Video was by the inestimable David Millstone, with help from Danny Walkowitz and Hal Wagner on sound. Hospitality was by the incomparable Jackie Algon.

We did not consistently reach the high standards Fried set for this dance: Sometimes our lines were ragged; we stopped when we should have flowed into the next figure, and we sometimes lost track of the next move. But we smiled throughout, to each other and to ourselves, as the music and dance propelled us through that happy time together. --Paul Ross