[lit-ideas] Re: May Day!
- From: "Andreas Ramos" <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 2 May 2005 22:34:26 -0700
> Lucky you. Sounds like great fun. I saw a pagan ceremony last year where
> they danced around the Maypole but we just watched. Interesting event.
1) It's much harder than you think. We had to do it twice. The first time,
everyone got out
of sync and it got messed up. There are 12 people. Six dance clockwise, six
dance
counterclockwise. As you pass each person, you weave in and out: the first you
pass on the
outside, the second you pass on the inside.
Illiterate peasants could do this and skip and dance and sing their tra-la-la
all at the
same time; we mostly stumbled around. Luckily, we had drank a generous amount
of beer and
wine before we started.
2) What's the point of the May Pole anyway? Why weave it? Any folklorists or
anthropologists
here?
This seems to me another one of those remarkably complex European folk dances.
Pogo is
easier. The weaving does look nice; it creates a diamond checkerboard pattern.
The dance is
also a bit of fun.
3) And once you wove it, you have to unweave it. Which means you dance in
reverse. If there
was a single error, this causes a bit mess.
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
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