Picking Up Sticks

A lively 3-couple dance from 1651 done at the Village Church in New York on a regular CD*NY Tuesday night. Music by Robin Russell, piano; Tom Phillips, violin, and Zadie Lawler, flute. From the top, dancers are Beverly Francis and David Chandler, Dorothy Cummings and Orly Krasner, and Ellie Hanson and Bob Erenburg.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Picking
• Up
• Sticks

[childgrove]

Cecil Sharp made a number of musical substitutions; his choice of The Hare's Maggot for the dance Up with Aily is a common example. Here and there, various ECD teachers match up the original tunes with their dances, and I applaud the experimentation. But personally I think that Sharp's musical sense was very acute, and I really like the marriage of music and dance that he achieved.

[arbatax1913]

ah che bello! complimenti!

[childgrove]

@arbatax1913

Non parlo Italiano, ma grazie a lei

[fireflower201]

wait, so is it "picking up sticks" or "picking of sticks"?

[childgrove]

As you acutely noticed, the title in the original is Picking of Sticks. Cecil Sharp changed this to Picking Up Sticks when he reconstructed the dance in volume 4 of the Country Dance Book, and modern practice has been to follow Sharp in this particular.

[CearaQC]

A very lively dance, indeed! I would love to have a copy of that arrangement of the tune!

[childgrove]

Hi, happy to oblige:

The band plays the music for Picking Up Sticks 8x through, then plays Kitty McGee A & B music (each played 1x, corresponding to the two shuttle figures), then back to Picking Up Sticks 1x through for the arming, and finally Kitty McGee ABB x2 for the sheepskin heys.

My thanks to violinist Paul Friedman of Brooklyn, NY for working this out.

Notice that we use Cecil Sharp-style swirl siding--much more fun than side-by-side siding for this music.

--Paul Ross

[WestfaliaMagna]

@childgrove And Sharp also put a different tune to this dance. Look at the tune at the very beginning - it´s completely different to the played one. The tune played belongs to the dance "Lavena", also from Playford´s 1st edition. But more and more groups begin to use the original tune, seen at first in an exhibition at the Consol Theatre in my home town Gelsenkirchen, Ruhr Area !

[MrCatiafan]

In Germany this dance is called "Mogler" meaning that the last person does not follow the chain, but abbreviates its way.

[CearaQC]

Thank you! I wasn't smart enough to realize it was two tunes in one. LOL