More on my thoughts for planning our dance

Here is my thinking about our planning an evening of dances. I suggested that each one of us should come up with an entire program for an evening of dances. This by itself would be a good exercise for each of us, since it would get us all thinking about the nature of the dances we call. The discussion we had last night brought up some of the features we need to pay attention to: variety of figures, increase in complexity/difficulty/energy as the evening progresses, etc. If we can each construct a program for an entire evening (or even only half an evening), we can compare our lists and see if we have dances in common, see if the "flow" of the evening is the same for different lists. We haven't even discussed how we want to divvy up the calling: do we want to change callers after each dance, or do we each want to do 2 dances in a row? How will we decide who calls at what point of the evening? 

So what I would like to do (and I will do it regardless of what we decide to do as a group!) is make a program for an evening of dances, listing the dances (6 per half, which is ambitious but do-able) and the "defining element" of each dance. For example, with the two dances I called last night, I would say the defining element of "Yankee Reel" is active down the center and up the outside, and that for "Don't Be Scared of Your Shadow" the defining element is balance wave/slide to partner swing (or allamande shadow to a wavy line). 

However we do this, we should get on with our planning so that we've got something to work on fairly soon. The "Hatchling Dance" is a ways off still, but we've only got 5 regularly scheduled calling parties at our disposal before the event.

Wade

 

Calling Party Wednesday January 30

Good party last night. Several of us tried new dances, so we had a lot of figuring out to do. Chrystal and Kay and David and Wade and Joe and Bob and Mac and I were there.

I tried one English dance, "Turning by Threes". What I learned is that, in those beautiful slow waltz dances, you can't use two measures to call the next move. You have to use just one. That's three counts. You have to jettison most of the directions, or let the "extra" directions come after the move is started. Instead of saying, six counts early, "Two changes of Rights and Lefts", you say, three counts early, "Rights and Lefts" and add "two changes" once the move is started.

My sure-fire dance (hah!) was the contra, "Rant and Roar". Funny, it looked so logical and easy to do for such good dancers. What could go wrong? Apparently lots. My source for the dance left out one little instruction, which, if we had had it, would have made all the difference. For those of you who were there, here it is: When the hey ends, and the men are facing out, ladies in, the man's left shoulder is next to his (current) neighbor. The Rory O'More move is done with the new neighbor, as is the allemande which starts the dance over. Whew! (And that thing where the ladies go across the set to balance their partners? It's a pass by the left, just as you thought. Pass by the right worked, but the original has pass by the left.)

We talked a bit about planning an evening, and Wade suggested we all plan a whole evening and then compare notes. And here I was hoping to get out of just that...

Planning an Evening

Here are my sources:
Mac
Ted
Tony Parkes' book ContraDance Calling - A Basic Text
Seth Tepfer - Programming an Evening
Colin Hume on Planning a Programme
Carey Ravitz on Choosing Dances
Bruce Hamilton's pamphlet "Notes on Teaching Country Dance"
Larry Jennings' book - Zesty Contras

As near as I can make out, the common message is
1.) Come prepared to call at the level of the dancers
2.) Work for variety
3.) Start with easy dances. End with easy dances. Harder ones go in the middle somewhere.

There's more, a lot more, but these seem to be the basics. If anyone has a favorite source I've left out here, let me know!

I'll start my review of these sources with Tony Parkes' book. He says "Two keys to successful programming are variety and flexibility."

Of variety he says that dances can vary by formation (contras, squares, circles, scatter dances and couple dances), by basic setup (the dominant figure could be a down the hall, or a hey, or contra corners - don't do two dances in a row with the same distinctive figure, or by the music (fast, slow, reel, jig) or by degree of difficulty or the energy the dances take, or by social interaction (more interaction with your partner or your neighbor or the same sex person).

Of flexibility he says that if the group isn't what you expected, it's good to be able to reprogram on the fly. Here are the factors he lists that could cause you to have to do this: age (at the extremes, some dances will be too difficult), the dancers' experience level, whether or not the dancers have been drinking, gender balance, marital status or what we might call the "velcro couple" syndrome, hall size and shape, slippery floor, presence of posts, size of crowd (too small for some dances, too crowded for others), and the weather.

The book then has his graph of the excitement level of the evening plotted against the difficulty of the dances.


According to this chart, the hardest dances should be at the end of the first half, or in the first part of the second half. I remember Ted (or Mac, or both) saying that the "unusual" dance, the one that takes the most thinking, should go kind of in the middle of the second half, with dances requiring little or no thinking after that until the end of the dance.

I feel that our contra dances have had more or less predictable challenges, so the number of considerations that Tony Parkes mentions in his book is perhaps smaller - we wouldn't do any of the International Folk Dances that Tony says could add variety, the weather doesn't affect us as much as it could, and our dancers don't usually drink before dancing. Our floor is good, we have no posts.

BUT

Sometimes the crowd is smaller and the bottom spreads out so far people have to run to get to the next set. Sometimes the crowd is larger and there's not enough room to dance some moves. We do get velcro couples. We sometimes get a biggish influx of beginners. We have at least one less-experienced dancer who asks newcomers to dance and then thinks it's okay to miss the walkthrough so that he single-handedly creates a vortex of chaos that knocks out three groups at once. So we have our challenges. We need to know how to pick dances that meet the need for variety, but we also need to be sure we choose dances with recovery points in them, like long lines forward and back, and long partner swings...

If someone wants to read Tony Parkes' book, I can lend it to you. You can also see Deborah Hyland to take advantage of the Childgrove Lending Library, which has other books of interest. These books are listed on the Childgrove Caller Resources page.

M
E

Hubris Successfully Avoided

Well.

I called two dances at Childgrove tonight.

The good news is that much of the teaching and calling went very well.

The other good news is that I successfully avoided coming out of it thinking that I'm pretty hot stuff. How hard could it be to call a couple of dances, one of which is pretty easy, and one of which our group has danced quite often? Hard enough, it seems. Apparently you have to (1) be very careful you write your card out correctly - do not write "circle left" when the move is actually "circle right" - (2) call dances that are different enough that you don't confuse one dance with one full circle and one three-quarter circle with one that has two three-quarter circles, and (3) REALLY learn to time the dance better. The last time I called, I cut the dance off too soon. This time I let it run way too long. Bob said "Yeah, we began to think it was a bit too long when we started meeting the same people for the third time."

But what a kick.

Thank you, Ted.

M
E

Planning a dance evening

We weren't able to attend last night's calling party, but I do have a few comments (natch) on planning a dance evening .

Ted's random thoughts:
- Start with a couple of easy dances.

- Let the dances build on "moves" taught in earlier dances. For example, once you've taught a "hey for four" feel free to use a dance with that figure in it again in the evening.

- But not the next dance! Try to vary the moves in consecutive dances. (Sometimes I really BLOW this. Whenever I do, I really feel stupid as a caller.)

- As an example of this, vary the formation of the dances. Intersperse a couple of Beckets in with the typical improper sets. And don't be afraid to call a proper dance! They can be fun, too.

- The last dance of the first half should be a really GOOD one. Some dancers will respond to their feelings after that dance to determine if they stay for the second half.
[Martha: Now you know why I suggested that you call the "Levi Jackson Rag" as the last dance of the first half. I think it fits that category. -- No pressure!]

- Similarly, the first dance of the second half should "hook" them into staying for more.- Dancers really do get "brain dead" by the end of the evening. So the last couple of dances should also be easy. But easy doesn't mean 'beginning" or "dumb." Rather, they should be flowing and intuitive.

- I sometimes like to end the evening with a medle of simple-flowing dances. Just a personal like.- At the end of the evening, acknowledge the band and thank the dancers for a fun time.

Hope this helps, Ted

Everything I know about dancing, I learned from a Jane Austen novel. . .

PBS's "Masterpiece Theatre" is currently running dramatizations of all six of Jane Austen's novels. It has been my experience that great novels make lousy films, and for the most part PBS and the BBC have not made me change my mind. But Jane Austen's novels almost always have episodes of dancing (i.e. English country dancing), and I look forward to seeing how the dances are depicted in film.

Last Sunday's offering was "Persuasion". There were many parts of the film that were regrettable, but the very brief scene of dancing was not. The scene was set in a country manor, and the heroine, Anne, played the piano while her family and relations danced. The dancing was very much like what we do in St. Louis, and the intimacy of the setting reminded me of Martha's calling parties. I don't know how historically accurate that particular portrayal of dancing was, but all generations seem to be dancing. (It's kind of a frightening thought to think that most people my age were already dead in Jane Austen's day!)

I am guessing here, but I presume that in a home setting--and perhaps even in a country town assembly--the dances would not have been called, because the dances would have been familiar to those involved. Much like today's country and western line dancing or yesterday's hokey-pokey, people learned from watching each other or from brief demonstrations by family or friends. Which isn't to say that calling is unimportant. I think it is very important. But it made me think that what we lack today is a common vocabulary of dances. This is not a new idea, I know. Wouldn't it be great, though, if everyone knew one or two dances (to start with), and that these dances were done at every English Country Dance? My candidates for the first two to be learned would be Chrystal Sailor and, of course, Saint Louis. We already have two wonderful callers, Chrystal and Kay, who could teach the dances. Once those dances were learned well by the regular attendees, they would then have a good grounding in ECD movement, and it might even make learning other dances easier. It would also be good for new comers, because they would know that at every dance, there would be something familiar. They wouldn't have to start from scratch every time.

Just a thought. . .

Hatchling Dance April 6

Ya gotta love Childgrove. They have been so supportive of our little calling incubator, that every one of our experienced callers has been willing to let one or the other of us take a slot or two to help us get some real-world experience. Now Peggy has invited us to call a whole dance!

It's in April, almost three months from now, which gives us time to investigate the deeper mysteries of planning an evening. I'd like to suggest that we start thinking about what kind of evening we'd like to present, and discuss what kinds of dances should go on the schedule (with substitutions if 20 beginners walk in after the workshop). We should certainly get input from our experienced callers, but I'd like to see if we can do the planning ourselves, then get it critiqued. Once we have an idea of the evening, we can each figure out which dance we'd like to call. Would that work?

I've run across probably a half-dozen really thoughtful discussions of how to plan a dance. I'll locate them again and add them to our list of resources (see the right column? Near the bottom?). If anyone knows of a good link, please post it, perhaps with a summary or review of what the writer has to say...

M
E

Something Good is Happening

Oh happy day!

Another fun English dance. Lots of people, interesting fun dancing. If this keeps up, I'm going to get my wish for really good ECD in St Louis a lot faster than I thought. (PLEASE don't anyone take offense at this sentiment. That was a compliment!)

Our own Kay and Chrystal did very well. Minimal (but not too minimal) teaching and clear calling BEFORE the moves made it easy to dance. A couple of the callers kept calling the moves AS we were supposed to be doing them, which made it impossible to prepare for a transition if you couldn't remember what came next. I certainly can't, yet -- it's so frustrating for me that I can't dance English yet without awkward moves and late starts. I can learn a contra with one walkthrough, but I just don't have many automatic moves and transitions between moves in English, so I have to THINK about each one. That's hard. I'm not sure this would be improved with more timely calls, but it couldn't hurt.

I've just got to get those other Bare Necessities CDs (or ask people to check the list of the dances we do have) so I can dance at the calling parties. I need the dancing practice badly!

M
E

Extra Calling Party January 9

A whole evening of practicing English - and many of the "mostly contra" folks said "See you Friday!" (at the English dance) as they left.

YESSS!

Kay and Chrystal are the only ones calling on Friday, so we made sure they got their dances in. Doug and Deborah and I also called one each, and Larry and Marianne and Joe and David and Deb and Wade and Bob were excellent and thoughtful kibbitzers.

My only complaint is that only 25% of the dances were on those new Bare Necessities CDs I just bought for us. It turns out there are three more CDs to get. I have only a feeble complaint, however, since the rest of the music was all in Barnes, (plus the music that Deborah brought - thanks!) so I got to play whatever tunes we were missing. Fortunately, I love to play this music. It's just that I'm trying to get to dance more, and the CDs were supposed to make that possible. Harrrumph.

What did I learn? A turn single is always over your right shoulder unless stated otherwise. A circular hey can take half as long as rights and lefts even though you walk the same track. The Mad Robin of "Mad Robin" is different from the one we do in Contra (only one couple moves at a time). An English dance CAN be done at 120BPM, though it's probably better not to go over 116BPM. When you're playing a clapping game, you should be careful where your hands go.

And I found out from Larry that there's a large English dance (often over 100 people) held by a group of homeschool folks. They dance in Webster Groves.

Introducing Chestnuts

Now that we have danced a few Chestnuts and analyzed a couple in great detail I offer a few comments:

These dances are different – not that there is anything wrong with that – but the caller needs to recognize the differences and make sure the teaching gets the dancers ready for something they might not be accustomed to.

While the individual figures might appear to be ones we do all the time – the transitions, the way they are approached and the position of the dancers might not be as familiar.. Even the timing of the figures might be something the dancers are not ready for.

The caller needs to identify these and teach them in a way the dancers are comfortable with.

Probably the biggest challenge for the caller is to sell the dancers something that is a little different. People attend the dances because they like the dances we normally do – changing that – even a little requires a very well planned out presentation by the caller.

We have the same issue with squares. We have to be very convincing that the dances will be fun. Kathy Anderson does this as well as anyone – her squares are much more readily accepted – and she can do 4 or 5 in an evening without most dancers not minding at all.

“We are doing this dance because we should” or “ because it is good for you” is not acceptable. Do you know any kids who enjoy their vegetables more because their parents said they were good for them?

So there is the challenge – if you want to introduce more of these older dances – or even different formations – you don’t need to convince me or the other board members – you need to sell the dancers on it. Try a bit and talk to the dancers – see what they like or don’t like – then adjust accordingly.

Thanks,
Mac

Double Swing Through SUCCESS!

As bad as your dress rehearsal is as good as your performance. Well, anyone at the calling party last Wednesday had serious doubts as to whether or not we/I would pull of Colin Hume's Double Swing Through but it worked! After Wednesday's disaster, I kept practicing--I've put on every CD my roommate has and just went through one track at a time, and anything with 4 potatoes I practiced to. On Sunday afternoon, I had a mini panic attack when I couldn't find my teaching notes...oops...left those at Martha and Bob's house. Thanks Martha for bringing them!

It all hinged on whether I could teach the "swing-through" successfully. A few people during the evening asked what I would be calling and anytime I said "swing-through" they either said, "oh-you're going to have to teach a swing through" or "what's a swing-through?" :-D

I really tried to watch the whole room. From what I observed it seemed that the majority of the room seemed to be getting along OK. Once in a while I did see a few people wandering around lost but nothing seemed to completely collapse. Did anyone time it? I have no idea how long I let the dance go. I had some people heckling me from the floor--I weathered it tolerably well--wink, wink. I actually managed to keep track of the music while making a face back.

I would love some feedback on how things felt from the floor. Did my teaching make sense? Were my calls on time/early/late? What areas can I work on so I can improve?

English Country Dance January 5

Will wonders never cease? Last night's English Country Dance Ball was the best I've been to in St. Louis. At this rate, I'm going to get my wish to dance really good English Country Dancing in St. Louis a lot sooner than I dared to hope. Nice twelfth day of Christmas present...

Peter did a masterful job of keeping everyone moving all night long, and Chrystal, Kay and Rebecca each did the same in their dances. Kay can now call Colin Hume's difficult "St Louis" in her sleep (and apparently does, sometimes), and Chrystal's "Chrystal Saylor" (a modification of "Female Saylor") went off beautifully. Rebecca's "Off She Goes" was done with appropriate silliness.

I discovered I needed to let my dress know in advance what move I was planning to make. It's a lot easier to turn on a dime in modern dress than in a very full long dress with triple crinolines and a hoop underneath! When I wasn't sure whether I was turning over my left shoulder or my right, I sometimes ended up with the dress rather twisted around my middle. Period clothing can provide a good incentive to improve one's dancing.

And today's brunch at Kay's was delightful - 70 degree weather on the sixth of January. Paul played while Peter called and we danced on Kay's deck.

Emergency Extra Calling Party January 9

An English Country Dance calling opportunity suddenly and unexpectedly opened up this Friday January 11, so we're calling on all of our merry band to come help practice this Wednesday, January 9!

Martha's house, 7:00pm.

M
E