venta

Hideously early tomorrow morning, I'm off to La Lachera di Rocca Grimalda. If you read that site, you'll know about as much about it as I do. It's a strange-sounding Italian folk festival, in a mountainous region, and this year their foreign guests include my occasional rapper team, Boojum.

I am woefully underprepared for this. Mostly because the trip isn't for ages yet, not til February... oh. Yesterday featured a lot of scrabbling around, packing, trying to find out exactly where Genoa was anyway, and so on.

Your standard rapper team dances in the following configuration:

Audience (optional :) 1 5 2 4 3

The critical point is that the different numbers all do different things. Very few people can dance all five positions competently - and just because you know position n in one particular dance, it doesn't mean you'll know it in another dance.

There's a certain amount of similarity in some cases. In general a number 1 can fudge being number 2 if required (they're both on the "casting side") and a 5 can fake being a 4 (they're on the "slipping side"). 3 is pretty much always a law unto itself. In some dances, there's a certain amount of symmetry that means 2 and 4 can swap easily... and so on.

Boojum have three different dances, each requiring five people, and seven dancers. I dance 2 in our two evolved (ie made-up) dances, and 4 or (if necessary) 5 in our traditional dance, Spen.

The astute among you will already have deduced that it's possible to have five dancers but not a valid selection of five - you might have three 4's, but not a 1 or a 2. There is, of course, also considerable difference between being able to muddle through an unfamiliar number and being able to put in a decent performance in front of an audience.

With me so far ? Good.

The trouble started at the beginning of the week, when Mel emailed our mailing list. She'd slipped in the snow and broken her wrist. Dancing is going to be right out for her this weekend.

After we'd expressed sympathy, the following came in:

Jean: Liz can dance Spen as 5 to give Rhiannon a turn out. We have no other substitutes for the Boojum dances.
Rhiannon: I thought that Mel did 4 in Spen when Liz did 5.
Liz: Arse. Could Ang be an emergency spare 4 ?
Ang: How hard can it be? I don’t imagine it’s WILDLY different to 2 but.... who would dance 2 if I did 4? I know 2 HAS been covered; I er, think it was Mel who did that...

[heated discussion]

Jean: Boojum One is ok, Ang is 4. Spen we can also cover, Liz is 4. Boojum Two - possibly not. Someone would have to cover 4. Jenny has been learning 2 so technically Liz could have a go at 4????? However, we can certainly manage with just two dances.

OK, situation under control.

Today, via private mail...

Rhiannon: at the moment heavily dosed with asprin. headache. feel I am going down with something but don't tell Jean.

Uh-oh...

Ah well. What can possible go wrong ?