[Callers] Dance length/dances per evening

[Ryan Smith via Callers]

There's a band I work with on a pretty regular basis that usually follows
my lead, but will occasionally ask "For this set, can we choose when to go
out?"  I trust them not to run it too long, and letting them choose when
they go out gives them a lot of control over the musical experience, which
ultimately seems to work well for the dancing experience.  I'll sometimes
signal a band when they're not ready to go out yet, and I'm usually willing
to be negotiated up from 3 more times to 5.  More than that, and we're
starting to wear out the dancers.

I think it's worth mentioning that if you know from the outset that you are
going to want to run a dance longer or shorter than your average, for
whatever reason, that if you communicate that to the band in advance it
will help make sure that you're not cutting them off just as they wind up
or leaving them sitting on a tune that they really didn't mean to play that
long.  I know some bands that like to be signaled when you get to the
middle of the dance, and will even ask to be signaled a little early for
certain sets of tunes.

Part of the reason for using a stopwatch (vs. a timer) is that it doesn't
tell you how much longer to run the dance.  It just tells you how long you
have run the dance, making it easy to be responsive to the music and the
dance and the dancers and the weather and all the other environmental
factors that come into play.

On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 4:58 PM, Donald Perley via Callers <
callers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

> Just a guess.. they have arrangements for each set and feel miffed if
> they get cut short without getting through each variation.
>
> On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 4:52 PM, Amy Wimmer via Callers
> <callers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>
> >
> > I have an oddity coming up: a band for which I am calling has asked to
> > take the lead on when to end the dances. I figure one evening of that
> > can't hurt, if it keeps the band happy. I will take notes. The leader
> > of this band has control issues and knows what's best for everyone.
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