[Callers] Dances For Short Line

[Tom Hinds via Callers]

Laur,

Even with great music and calling it's tough to create excitement  
when the hall feels empty.  I've tried to think of everything I can  
do to make that kind of evening fun.  My personal choice is to call a  
large proportion of contras where the dancers swing their partner not  
their neighbor.  The logic is this:  If you swing your neighbor in  
every dance, especially early in the evening, what is there to look  
forward to?  With partner swing dances only, when you get a new  
partner you haven't swung him/her 10 times before hand.

In general I usually run contras until everyone has swung their  
neighbors and then end the dance.  So for me contras with a partner  
only swing is preferred when numbers are small.

And I include many dances that are in other formations and also take  
some time to teach and dance.  Here's one.

Dip and Dive for Five (my name)
Formation is a small circle of 4 couples numbered 1-5.  There's sort  
of a home place but this is not critical.
I learned this from Fred Park and if my memory is correct it comes  
form the border area between West Virginia and Ky.

Couple 1 swings in the center of the set, others form a square around  
couple 1.

Couple 1 faces up or down, heads dip and dive- takes 16 beats

Couple 1 faces a side couple, dip and dive....

8 dancers join hands and go forward and back.  Go forward and back  
again and bring couple 1 back where they belong.

Break
Allemande left grand right and left.  With partner, turn back (5th  
hand is with partner and is a left allemande).  Swing partner at "home".

I usually call break, figure, break, figure etc.....

Tom