Eppur Si Muove
Scottish Country Dance Instruction
Eppur Si Muove (S4x40) A 40 bar strathspey for four couples in a longwise set. Devised By Murrough Landon (2020).3rd and 4th couples start on the opposite side.
1- 4 1st and 4th couples, giving both hands, half turn their partner, pull right shoulder back and cast a quarter widely round each other to end on the centre line, men in the middle.
5- 8 Orbital Resonance:
1st and 4th men, giving left hands, turn tightly twice round, ending back to back;
while 2nd and 3rd couples, with long steps, chase clockwise once round them;
while 1st and 4th women dance half way clockwise to the other end of the centre line.
9-16 1st and 4th couples dance a reel of four on the centre line.
17-20 1st and 4th couples, giving both hands, half turn the facing person. Pulling right shoulder back they then cast away in a small loop to end on the centre line, women in the middle.
21-24 All repeat bars 5-8 from new places : 4th and 1st women turn twice in the centre; 2nd and 3rd couples repeat their chase; 1st and 4th men dance half way round outside them.
25-28 4th couple (at the top) and 1st couple (at the bottom) each cast in tandem, with the men leading, right shoulder round 2nd and 3rd women respectively. 2nd and 3rd couples step out to the ends on bars 27-28.
The order is now 2,4,1,3 with 1st and 3rd couples on the opposite side.
29-32 4th and 1st couples dance left hands across and end heading towards the sides.
33-36 2nd with 4th couples, also 1st with 3rd couples, each dance right hands across.
37-40 All circle eight hands half way round to the left.
The final order is 3,1,4,2 with 4th and 2nd couples on the opposite side.
(Dance crib compiled by the deviser, Murrough Landon, CC BY-SA November 2020)
Keith Rose's Crib Diagram
Dance Instruction Videos
Eppur Si Muove - Scottish Country Dancing Instruction VideoDance Information
The title comes from Galileo. His astronomical observations led him to support the view that the Earth orbits the Sun, rather than remaining fixed at the centre of the universe.Church authorities rejected this view, and Galileo was forced to recant his published opinions after being threatened with torture by the Inquisition. He was later reported to have said of the Earth, "Eppur si muove" ("And yet it moves").
Galileo was the first to observe the four largest moons of Jupiter. Three of them, Io, Europa and Ganymede, are locked in an orbital resonance: Io completes four orbits and Europa two for every one orbit made by Ganymede. This is illustrated in the figure in bars 5-8 and 21-24, although the demands of the choreography require the central pair, representing Io, to defy reality and turn in the opposite direction from the others.
The reel could be taken to represent the ripples in Saturn's rings caused by small "shepherd" moons; the casting and hands across as the gravitational slingshot manoeuvres used to send observational spacecraft towards the outer planets; and the final circle as the rotating, rather than fixed, galactic background. Or invent your own symbolism!
Recommended music: Suggested tune: Ladykirk Bridge (Muriel Johnstone).
Suitable recording: Sheila of Morpeth (Marian Anderson and her Band: Newcastle upon Tyne and District RSCDS 70th Anniversary). The suggested tune is the 4th one in this recording.
(Dance information from notes supplied by the deviser, Murrough Landon, CC BY-SA November 2020)
"Sketches Of The Moon", (From En:Sidereus Nuncius), Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), c. 1610
Published in Eppur Si Muove, reproduced here with the kind permission of the deviser, Murrough Landon. Licensed under CC BY-SA.
Image from Galileo Galilei, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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