Mon dieu, there is so much to love about this clip. The collision of the joyful with the serious; the whoops of glee and the relentless stomp of feet off picture, while perfect upright poise maintains the loftiness of those titfers – the B52s in crisp linen and lace. The contrast of anachronistic costume despoiled by competition numbers, while weaving between are civilians with clipboards weighing each dancer for authenticity and style. The striding out at the start of each figure a la maniere de Cleese, while retaining a courtly air. Then, come off it, unless you’ve watched plenty of danses bretons sur l’YouTube (only me then), you will have been caught off guard when the camera pans to the musicians with very breton-sounding names. And ‘dieu encore’, do I love the music! The bombarde and the biniou – the perfect breton bedfellows – creating one of my favourite rackets. Harsh and harsher, tonality reaching across centuries, echoes from the music of other continents, yet this is a sound specific to the Armorican sphere. This has put a spring in my step, if not a number on my back.
Let’s Dance
post a clip with ace dancing in it. Here’s mine, fortunately the music is ace too:
Hot Damn! Old Movie Dance Scenes Mashup
Dance clips from 66 old movies edited to Uptown Funk. Watch it all – it’s full of wonder and delight – but definitely watch the astonishing moment at 4:30, which caused my son to exclaim: “OOOF! They must have squashed their willies!”
Journeys of Meaning
On Friday morning at 8 o’clock, I will set off at a laden-Landrover-defined speed of around 40 mph for Shrewsbury. I know exactly how long it will take, just under 2 hours, as I make the same journey on the same Friday each year. SatNav? SchmatNav! I don’t even need one of my much loved maps. The route is hardwired. The litany of Marcher placenames is entirely reassuring : Wimboldsley, Sound, Burleydam, Edstaston, Preston Gubbals. At Bomere Heath, I am almost there. No matter the names on the fingerposts, I am familiar enough with the hedgerows to home my way there.
Making the same journey at the same time each year brings other associations: the angle of morning sun, the likelihood of mist and dew on the meadows, the songbirds mustering voice for their last autumn hurrah after the lull of summer. Indeed, until I started doing Shrewsbury, I never realised just how autumnal is the August Bank Holiday weekend.
I could go by a different route, but I never will now. It would be almost blasphemous. It is fair to say that I order my world in geographical terms. So I can appreciate how set paths were used » Continue Reading.