{"id":46887,"date":"2017-10-05T17:11:38","date_gmt":"2017-10-05T21:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.pinemountainsettlement.net\/?p=46887"},"modified":"2021-04-17T00:11:57","modified_gmt":"2021-04-17T04:11:57","slug":"dancing-cabbage-patch-english-country-dancing-pmss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/staging.pinemountainsettlement.net\/?p=46887","title":{"rendered":"DANCING IN THE CABBAGE PATCH English Country Dancing at Pine Mountain Settlement School"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pine Mountain Settlement School<\/strong>
Blog: DANCING IN THE CABBAGE PATCH \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

TAGS: English Country Dancing, Pine Mountain Settlement School, Harlan County, Kentucky, dancing, recreation, folk dancing, set running, party games, Kentucky Running Set, Cecil Sharp, Maude Karpeles, Phil Jamison, Dorothy Bolles, Abby Winch Christensen, Dorothy Nace, Mary Rogers, Berea College Country Dancers, Berea College, Arthur Dodd, Glyn Morris,\u00a0<\/p>\n

ENGLISH COUNTRY DANCING
AT PINE MOUNTAIN SETTLEMENT SCHOOL<\/h2>\n
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May Day 1949. Drawing by Mary Rogers<\/p><\/div>\n

English Country Dance crept into the Pine Mountain Valley like the bright green of Spring time creeps up the North flank of the mountain — slowly. Dance in the valley was not unknown in the first decades of the twentieth century, but the gentility of English Country Dance was unknown. Anywhere there was a large community gathering in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky there were “parties” and “party games” and often “set-running.” Churches were largely opposed to “dancing” but “party games” were often accepted. In the more strict religious sects, dance had always been\u00a0forbidden. Dancing was seen as the work of the devil, but so was moonshine, but never guns.<\/p>\n

In the Pine Mountain Valley, many in the community had been “dancing” most of their lives. The dance most favored was one later called the Kentucky Running Set<\/em>. It was a fast-paced, vigorous and lengthy series of maneuvers which were rhythmically called out by a leader.\u00a0According to Phil Jamison, in his 2015 book, Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics: Roots and Branches of Southern Appalachian Dance<\/em>, pp.72-73, the idea of a “Running Set” is not as intuitive as it seems. A noted North Carolina dance historian, dancer and set caller, Jamison suggests that the term “set” has several definitions. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the seventeenth century, for example, a “set” was used to describe a series of simple steps in place to one’s partner, as in the action to “set” to a partner before turning. Jamison. however, also conjectures that Karpeles and Sharp conflated the meaning with another “set”, that of a\u00a0composition of<\/span> figures, such as Jamison’s suggestion, “a ‘set of Quadrilles.'” Further, French dances that had many parts were referred to as “sets”. This last description of a set given by Jamison, suggests to him that the use of the term is associated with the idea of a Quadrille “set” and this seems to be confirmed in the appearance of the term and idea in the Southern Appalachians. Strengthening his argument for a French connection with the Quadrille, he quotes Karpeles from an article, “Some Additional Figures for Set Running,” In the Journal of the English Folk Dance Society<\/em> 2, no. 3 (1930): 39-50.<\/span><\/p>\n

“It is very probable that the word ‘set’ implies a ‘set of figures,’ in the way that it is customary to speak of a ‘set of Quadrilles.'”<\/em><\/p>\n

As for “running” Jamison conjectures that it has its origins in Scotland. In dances, particularly the reel, where “running a set” was a common description of the dance pattern.<\/p>\n

It was this “dance,” this running of sets, that surprised and charmed one of the world’s leading instructors of English Country Dance when he first viewed it at Pine Mountain<\/span>. The dance form had been observed by visitors to the School and commented on by the staff when visiting on fundraising trips to the North East. And when Cecil Sharp came to America, it was recommended by English Country Dance lovers in the North East that Sharp come listen to the ballad singers and see what the remote people in Eastern Kentucky had retained of old English forms of entertainment in song and dance. Pine Mountain gave Cecil Sharp a gift, and Cecil Sharp left a gift for the School — English Country Dancing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Cecil Sharp<\/strong><\/a>‘s discoveries at the School were well described in his book. English folk songs from the southern Appalachians, collected by Cecil J. Sharp; comprising two hundred and seventy-four songs and ballads with nine hundred and sixty-eight tunes, including thirty-nine tunes contributed by Olive Dame Campbell<\/i>, edited by Maud Karpeles. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932. The book, dedicated to William Creech, the donor of the land for the Pine Mountain Settlement School remains a testimony of a mutual fondness for the culture of the Southern Appalachians. When Cecil Sharp came to the School along with his secretary, Maud Karpeles, he witnessed a joyful and energetic community of set runners and when he left, he set a tradition for the inclusion of English Country Dancing in annual celebrations and in the school’s educational program.<\/p>\n

GALLERY I: DANCING IN THE CABBAGE PATCH English Country Dancing at PMSS<\/h3>\n\n\t\t