Fourplay

Our club is teaching fourplay this month for lessons. Has anyone learned this dance? It's a group dance with WCS, ECS, and C&W moves. Just thought it would be interesting to see if anyone had any thoughts, pointers, suggestions, etc...

Hmm. Never heard of fourplay (other than the jazz group.) Is it specific choreography? A line dance?

heartgrl2k said:

Our club is teaching fourplay this month for lessons. Has anyone learned this dance? It's a group dance with WCS, ECS, and C&W moves. Just thought it would be interesting to see if anyone had any thoughts, pointers, suggestions, etc...

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I learned this years ago . . . fun dance . . . just remember that your part of the fourplay is to keep it going, and the only way to keep it going is to complete all the turns , etc. If you happen to mess up your footwork . . . keep going . . . walk through it . . . do your part . . . then catch up on the footwork!

You'll be a "pro" at this by the end of the month. It doesn't take long to master this, as there are no alternate moves designed into it, but you can add some later - if you teach those alternate moves to the other three dancers!

Oh, one last tip . . . stay close to begin with . . . AND HAVE FUN!

Ok I cannot resist...what is the history behind that name? Vince saying dance close started me off down an interesting path...

Sagitta said:

Ok I cannot resist...what is the history behind that name? Vince saying dance close started me off down an interesting path...

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OK, get your mind out of the gutter . . . its not spelled FOREPLAY!

*giggle* I was wondering who was going to go there. :lol:

The jazz group is made up of four truly stellar jazz musicians with solo careers of their own. Every so often, they get together and make a CD. So four play. A play on words. Get it? :wink: :lol:

I assumed the dance was something similar -- an amalgam of several (four?) dances. *shrug*

Sagitta said:

Ok I cannot resist...what is the history behind that name? Vince saying dance close started me off down an interesting path...

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The "four" is because it involves two couples (ie, four people) switching partners. I am quite sure that it's no accident it was named to sound like "foreplay" and that similarity does get played with a bit.

I learned it about a year ago in a WCS workshop and might still be able to pull it off as long as the other couple is up to snuff on it. The idea of doing it on the floor is for the two couples to be dancing as usual and then they go into fourplay leaving the onlookers wondering what's going on.

The next stage is for a third couple to join in and then a fourth, etc. After the point where the third couple joins in, the name changes to "mass confusion". I think we had about six or seven couples in one practice "mass confusion" (maybe more -- I was a bit confused). Just watch out for the point where you all reach in for the wrist -- picture a circle suddenly contracting;the effect becomes more and more pronounced as the number of couples grows. And, guys, be very mindful of your free hand; at first, mine kept getting trapped between the ladies' bodies -- I'm not sure what it was touching but I wasn't hearing any complaints either though that didn't stop me from trying to figure out how to remedy the situation as fast as I could.

This kind of thing is a well-established mixer dance in the Barn Dance (a Country line dance in a circle in which you regularly rotate partners) and in Salsa's Casino Rueda ("wheel") in which a caller calls out one of several possible moves (eg, "dame una" for "give me a girl" whereupon you rotate partners). I've also seen a Lindy rueda, but I don't think that one is very widely done.

Ah. I wondered if that was another possibility. I think the first post mentioned a "group dance," so I was envisioning a line dance. Hmm. Cool.

pygmalion said:

Ah. I wondered if that was another possibility. I think the first post mentioned a "group dance," so I was envisioning a line dance. Hmm. Cool.

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Actually, fourplay/mass-confusion is a line dance of sorts, since it consists of a specific set of steps that everybody has to dance or else it won't work. Of course, as with some line dances, you can throw in extra turns here and there.

It's the rueda-style dances that can vary depending on what the caller calls out.

Thanks for everyone's posts and great tips! Our class is going to see how large of a circle we can make by the end of the month!

DWise1 said:

The "four" is because it involves two couples (ie, four people) switching partners. I am quite sure that it's no accident it was named to sound like "foreplay" and that similarity does get played with a bit.

I learned it about a year ago in a WCS workshop and might still be able to pull it off as long as the other couple is up to snuff on it. The idea of doing it on the floor is for the two couples to be dancing as usual and then they go into fourplay leaving the onlookers wondering what's going on.

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So how do you go about signaling the other couple to start this and at what point do you do it? Is there an instructional tape about this? This is definitely sounds fun to do among friends or with people who know how to do this.

I've seen it at a country swing affair. It was done with 4 couples and at the time looked difficult. But now, after having danced for a couple years, I don't think it could have been. I remember it as all being very repetitive but seemed like fun.

swing4life said:

DWise1 said:

The "four" is because it involves two couples (ie, four people) switching partners. I am quite sure that it's no accident it was named to sound like "foreplay" and that similarity does get played with a bit.

I learned it about a year ago in a WCS workshop and might still be able to pull it off as long as the other couple is up to snuff on it. The idea of doing it on the floor is for the two couples to be dancing as usual and then they go into fourplay leaving the onlookers wondering what's going on.

Click to expand...

So how do you go about signaling the other couple to start this and at what point do you do it? Is there an instructional tape about this? This is definitely sounds fun to do among friends or with people who know how to do this.

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No signalling required. It's a line dance with a set pattern of moves. As long as all the couples start out at the same time, it should work.

I'm trying to remember it now:
Sugar push
Locked whip -- as she's step back, the other guy puts out his arm and catches her on the back into his frame. When her previous partner sees that the other guy's caught her, he releases her hand.
Three tuck turns -- as she does the turning anchor at the end of the tuck turn, the other guy catches her as before.
The confusing part -- you'd have to see it. I'm real hazy here (it's been nearly a year), but it involves the leader having hold of somebody's wrist, then taking hold of a girl's wrist with his right hand, letting go with his left, and leading the girl out of the circle where she's picked up by the next guy (and another tuck turn, I think). I think this is done a few times
Then it's back to the beginning with the sugar push.

Anybody please feel free to correct me.
Heck, I didn't even check to see whether it's been described here yet.

PS
Just check and, no, not in this thread. Sorry for the burned-out brain; it's been a long millennium so far.

LOL. I saw a step pattern description online which, IIRC, I promised to find again and post... then promptly forgot. :lol:

DWise1 said:

Actually, fourplay/mass-confusion is a line dance of sorts, since it consists of a specific set of steps that everybody has to dance or else it won't work. Of course, as with some line dances, you can throw in extra turns here and there.

It's the rueda-style dances that can vary depending on what the caller calls out.

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Then it's a sequence dance!

There are a couple of dances in Scottish country dancing that involve everyone in the room exchanging partners and they're great fun and very social, I'd love to try something like this.

Although you'll sometimes have a caller at ceilidhs, it's usually because there are inexperienced dancers there who need to be reminded of the steps, and they'll usually walk everyone through the sequence at the beginning. So a ceilidh band at a wedding will typically have a caller because there will be guests who don't know the repertoire. In situations where everyone knows the dances these are usually dispersed with.