Upto(w)n-upon-Whatever

Back to Border dances

History:

We learned "the" Chingford Stick dance (locally known as "Dance X" or, erroneously, as "Upton-on-Severn") early in our team's history, but were forced to adapt it for four dancers when our membership dropped one winter. There were also concessions to a very small practice space. We have continued to dance it with four ever since, though we still don't know what to call it.

Music:

What ever dancers use locally for Dance X.

Stepping:

Double steps, with the raised foot hooking across the other shin before the bell shake. Figures are punctuated with three stomps in the last bar (I believe the original Chingford style has two).

Verse Figures:

Rounds: Face corner and back out on the first double-step. Circle clockwise about, twice around if time allows, and if space is tight. End facing partner with three stomps.

Double-cross: Clash sticks as you pass right shoulders with partner, move forward turning around into partner's place, clash as you cross back, turn in your own place, clash and cross again, turn again in partner's place, clash and cross home with a quick turn in place, stomp three times.

Squires-out: Face partner and move to right shoulder with partner, middles circle halfway around each other by the left shoulder, and all continue the hey with right and then left shoulders, trying to get home in time for the three stomps.

Squires in: Turn to face neighbor and step to right shoulders, middles circle halfway around by the left shoulder, and continue the hey. It is the same as squires-out, but oriented across the line of the set.

Cloverleaf: Face partner and clash sticks as you cross passing right shoulders; loop three quarters of a circle away from the center of the set and reform a square facing up-and-down. Repeat four times, substituting a quick turn and three stomps for the final loop. Always pass by the right and then loom three-quarters of a circle away from another dancer.

Rounds again.

Chorus:

Sticking with partner (variations), for eight strikes, then on a ninth strike step with the right foot across the left into the first of three double-steps in a very small circle behind your home position as if dancing around a lamp post. Finish with three stomps.

Sticking variations:

High: First and fourth choruses. clash forehand-backhand-etc. with partner.

Joust: Second and fifth choruses. Turn the tip of the stick down into the left hand, and strike as with quarter-staves, first with right hand high and then with left hand high. After the eighth strike, release the left hand, and strike with a forehand high on the ninth.

Windmills: Third and sixth choruses. Strike forehand high, then left hand low, etc. This is called "high and low" in the original Chingford dance, where I am told they add the caveat "it shouldn't look like a @#$&* windmill".

Ending: In place of the last stomps of the last chorus, all dancers face corners and plant both feet firmly on what would have been the first stomp, and swing sticks to strike the ground in the center of the set on what would have been the third.