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A2 Hey (Men start L sh) (16)
B1 M allem L x 1.25 (~6), (*W join HANDS ACROSS in IN FRONT OF partner) Star L 3/4 (~6), Shadow allem R x 1
B2 Partner Bal and Sw (16) (slide L to meet new neighbors)
Notes: Start by identifying shadow: Join hands along the long lines. Partner is in one hand, Shadow is in the other. This dance came out of attempts to write a dance where you go from a hey to a star. This dance isn't exactly what i had in mind, but it works nicely and I guess you'd call it part of a work in progress. *The hey starts on the side with Neighbors, so does the Mens' allemand. After a little over one time around, the Men will be coming up on their partners for the second time. This is when the Women reach hands across - IN FRONT OF their partners. The whole Hey-allemand-star-allemand combination is sort of "organic' in the timing. It will take a little while for the dancers to "get it' but will eventually settle down. There is actually plenty of time to finsh B1 in 16 counts, but you still probably want tunes played at a moderate tempo.
I wrote this dance while sitting in the Glen Echo Park "Bumper Car Pavillion" before a dance one night in May 2002. The place was still getting "renovated" in preparation for moving the dance there while the Spanish Ballroom was rebuilt. I actually scribbled the dance down on a piece of Cedar Shingle - the only thing I could find to write on at the time - a scrap left from some of the new siding on the structure. While hanging out there, Stan Fowler, Glen Echo Park Ranger (it's a National Park you know) came by and we started talking about the floor of the Bumper Car Pavillion. Stan showed me a piece of the floor board that had been taken up to be replaced. The old floor was Yellow Pine that was old growth forest. Since the pavillion is a hundred years old and some of the boards were estimated (by counting growth rings) to be from trees well over another 100 years old, Stan was figuring the floor board were from trees that were growing in the 1700's. The neat thing was that the rings were so VERY CLOSE together on these boards (as opposed to the pressure treated stuff that was replacing them). I mean, it was like 20 or 30 rings per inch! At this point, Stan told me a story about how they used to cut trees in the old "original growth" forests. They had to do it from the "outside in" because the trees were so close together that was the only way you could get the tree to actually fall to the ground! That's also why the rings were so close. The trees grew so slowly because they had very little light. You learn something every day! So any way, this dance is for Stan, the dancing ranger.
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