Issue 1652: Source for the Dunedin Festival Dance

New issue submitted

Assigned changed to »anselm« (previously »None«)
Disposition changed to »Fixed« (previously »New«)

It’s sometimes difficult to figure out what the “best” source for a published dance is. In this case, the Collins book (or whatever it is called this week) counts as an RSCDS HQ publication and these tend to beat publications by random dance groups (no disrespect intended to Dunedin, which is a fine outfit ;^)). It is probably reasonable to accept that for, say, “Pelorus Jack”, RSCDS Book 41 is a source that is more widely available than Barry Skelton’s Dolphin Book, even though the dance first appeared in the latter book. With dances outside the main canon of “numbered” RSCDS books things are often not that clear-cut.

The main point of contention is that there are situations where we can only cite one source for a dance, such as in overview listings, dance lists, or crib/diagram sheets. The question there is, do we list the “original” source or a reprinted source that people are more likely to have to hand? Having said that, there is a certain amount of hand-tweaking going on to cover cases like the one in question here. I completely sympathise with the idea that the main source for the dance should be Dunedin Dances 4, and I’ve therefore switched the priorities around such that it shows up at the top of the list.