[Callers] Seeking contras for a crowded hall

[James Saxe via Callers]

Paul,

Thanks for mentioning mescolanzas (a/k/a 4-face-4 or Portland Fancy
formation dances).  I'll try to pick out a couple where the figures
aren't expansive lengthwise and have them ready for possible use
depending on how I see the dancers fitting into the available space.

I'll make a couple comments on space requirements of 4-face-4 dances
below.  Meanwhile I hope people will keep contributing other ideas
(both general suggestions and specific dances) for contra dances in
crowded halls.

     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

I think people often misjudge the space requirements for 4-face-4
dances, both in term of width and length.

I've sometimes seen callers combine four contra sets into two
4-face-4 sets (and leave them like that) at times when I thought
that three 4-face-4 sets would have fit comfortably into the width
of the hall and would have been much more comfortable than two
sets in terms of length.  By conrast, I once saw a caller--wisely,
in my opinion--put dancers into four 4-face-4 sets at a dance
weekend where, as far as I'd noticed, the best-attended sessions
had never had more than five regular contra lines, and where six
contra lines might have felt just a little bit crowded in width.

Dancers may line up for a 4-face-4 with foursomes closer to each
other than optimal, particularly if the dance includes a figure
that is expansive lengthwise.  Consider, for example, Al Olsen's
"First Bloom" [see _Zesty Contras_ or RPDLW syllabi for 2007 and
2009], where dancers get into a temporary square and the ladies
do a grand chain over and back.  If foursomes start out too closely
spaced, the "square" will end up having head couples close together
and side couples far apart, and the chain will become awkward, both
because the head ladies have to wait for the side ladies to rush to
the center and because the head ladies will be uncomfortably close
to dancers in the next group up or down the set during the courtesy
turns.  If the caller suggests, before the walk-through, that
dancers stretch their sets to use the full length of the hall, and
if the dancers respond half-heartedly, the caller might get better
results by repeating the suggestion *after* the walk-through or,
if convenient, just after walking through ladies' grand chain (or
whatever figure in a particular dance is most in need of space
along the set).

--Jim