What was the dance called?
Was it Jenny's Market that Mr Knightley and Emma dance to at the ball?
shareI thought it was Ginny's Market.
shareYes, it's called "Ginny's Market" and was an original dance choreographed especially for the programme.
You can read a lttle about it in these posts on Austenblog. The heated discussion between two of the posters is quite amusing!
http://austenblog.com/2009/10/19/emma-2009-episode-3/
It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.
The heated discussion between two of the posters is quite amusing!
I think the whole thread of comments is scary, actually!
Oh, and the whole of Jane Austen's text + 'Regency' mannerisms (why do people think nobody moved or talked naturally in Jane's time?) = Emma 1972. Deadly dull.
Thank you, Sandy Welch, for bringing Emma to life!
"Tony, if you talk that rubbish, I shall be forced to punch your head" - Lord Tony's Wife, Orczy
I don't know if you were on this board at the very beginning, Flip, but there were LOTS of posts with the same criticisms. (Unfortunately, all those threads have been long deleted - the oldest thread now is alfa's top five Austen adaptations below.) Those of us who were here put up a spirited defence for what we considered the best EMMA ever!
I actually went on to the Austenblog site with my comments 'cos I could stand it no longer! Lol.
http://austenblog.com/2009/10/04/emma-2009-part-i/
I hope I don't get shot down in flames for this(!) but I find that the ones who appear the most obsessed with British mannerisms and etiquette are those NOT from Britain. (Don't know where YOU'RE from, Flip. ) It's as if they have this quaint, idealised view of an Olde Englande that never was, perpetuated by Hollywood. Just a theory.
I SO agree with you about the wonderful Sandy Welch bringing EMMA to life. She did the same with JANE EYRE and NORTH & SOUTH. She's not afraid to make the necessary alterations to make an adaptation accessible to a modern audience (and that takes courage!), but she remains true to the SPIRIT of the source material (and gets to the nub of things better than anyone.)
It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.
I hope I don't get shot down in flames for this(!) but I find that the ones who appear the most obsessed with British mannerisms and etiquette are those NOT from Britain. (Don't know where YOU'RE from, Flip.) It's as if they have this quaint, idealised view of an Olde Englande that never was, perpetuated by Hollywood. Just a theory.
My thoughts exactly, Supergran! (I'm just too much of a coward to say so!) I'm from the UK, and always find it amusing when 'Janeites' set down the standards as to the way Austen's characters should behave, how they should speak, the amount of facial expression allowed, for goodness sake - and the sites where I read these enlightening comments are mostly US blogs, like the austenblog quoted above. I honestly suspect that a lot of these posters think the English still have restricted movement and use correct speech!
I completely agree that Sandy Welch honours the spirit of the original novel, but also that she remains 'casually faithful' to the text as well. All the key scenes are there, bar the 'brother and sister' line, which I don't find to be crucial - JLM's expression when Knightley leads Emma to the dance floor is far more eloquent than that leering aside, anyway. What Welch cannot do is satisfy everybody's expectations - we all imagine the characters differently, and some fans obviously value the history over the story anyway. I also love Welch's screenplay of North and South, though I haven't watched it in a while - was there the same uproar over the treatment of that novel when it first aired?
It's also amusing how retrospectively forgiving the Janeites can be of previous adaptations - Emma Thompson's S+S bears little resemblance to the novel, yet compared to Andrew Davies' later offering, suddenly Thompson is a 'genius' for her 'creative' interpretation, and Winslet, Rickman et al cannot be bettered. The same with Emma - because of the thirteen year wait for a new adaptation, the 1972 and two 1996 versions are suddenly considered 'classics' by their respective fan bases, and the newcomer is rounded on by all but a relative few (thank you for your 'spirited defence', Supergran - I didn't bother reading the austenblog thread this time, but appreciated your succinct rebuttal!)
Sorry to go on. I didn't watch the miniseries on television, and so wasn't able to join in the debate here, but the DVDs are now my treasured possessions I also read the novel constantly - three times already this year - and actually think Welch adds to the story on occasion. Harriet's announcement that she will never marry follows on from the ceremonial burning of Mr Elton's pencil (that sounds wrong, but you know what I mean), not just the general conversation about marriage in the book, and Frank's blathering letter is done away with altogether! For that, at the very least, we should be forever grateful to Sandy Welch!
"Tony, if you talk that rubbish, I shall be forced to punch your head" - Lord Tony's Wife, Orczy
I think the criticisms about the dances in Emma09 are due to Janeites being big fans of previous adaptations (mostly the ones from the 1990's) and mistakenly believing that the choreographer(s) of these adaptations were scrupulous about period accuracy. That is simply not the case. As this English Country Dance expert points out, there are many errors pertaining to dance found in those 1990's JA adaptations.
http://www.kickery.com/2008/03/regency-dancers.html
Choreographer Jane Gibson (who designed the dance scenes in most JA adaptations prior to 2007), was probably a huge fan of the dances she used on those films/adaptations, particularly Hole in the Wall and a couple of others, hence her inserting them in programs set in the wrong period for such dances to be popular.
Going by the information posted on that website (and from comments repeated by my own ECD instructors), the dancing in Emma09 is much more accurate than dancing found in most previous adaptations of JA's novels.
And the window hold used in Knightley and Emma's waltz (Ginny's Market) is pictured on the linked site.
Thank you for the link, random. Very interesting. So Emma would most likely have been 'whooping it up like a landless Irish lass' after all!
Regency Dancers Don't Walk
In the 18th and early 19th century, walking was not considered dancing. The music was lively (jigs and reels), and the dances were performed primarily by people in their late teens and early twenties (not known for their sedate habits).
"Tony, if you talk that rubbish, I shall be forced to punch your head" - Lord Tony's Wife, Orczy
My ECD instructor told us that due to the English navy having had much success during the Napoleonic wars, nautical-themed dancing (hornpipes and the like) could be found throughout England-- not just the local taverns of port towns. So although one might not find much nautical-themed dancing among the elite, Highbury society hardly fits that description.
shareWow, that kiki really did make an ass of herself in those blog comments! Not only pedantic, but WRONG!
share