[Callers] Role Scramblers dances with balances

[James Saxe via Callers]

On Apr 8, 2016, at 9:49 AM, Erik Hoffman wrote:

> Don’t know if you call squares, but Ted Sanella
[Sannella --js]
> called this square—a number of times when I was lucky enough to dance to his calling.
> ... 
[remainder of Erik's message w/ full dance description copied
below]

Erik,

Do you remember anything about the break figures Ted used with
this dance?

If the breaks included allemande left (with corners) and right
and left grand, dancers would have to cope with looking in what
could feel like the "wrong" direction to find corners and with
going in what could feel like the "wrong" direction for the
right and left grand.  If the allemande left came after a partner
swing, that might have been particularly challenging for dancers
unused to that sort of thing.  [Side note:  Using an Alamo Ring
type chorus could meet Lindsay Dono's original request for
"dances with balances and waves," but, just as with a regular
right and left grand, some dancers could find that the action
felt disconcertingly different when they changed gender roles.]

Breaks included things like "head couples right and left through"
or "side 'ladies' chain" or "all four 'men' left hand star" might
similarly have required dancers to keep their wits about them (or
drawn upon their capacity to remain cheerful in the face their
own and each other's goofs).

The sort of stuff I'm talking about strikes me as more suited
for a challenging session at a dance camp/weekend than for a
regular evening dance--and even more so now than at the time of
Ted's visits to California 25-30 years ago, on account of the
generally lower average familiarity of contras dancers with
squares.  Indeed, if someone were calling at the kind of dance
camp/weekend where the acceptable number of squares to call is
quite limited, I'd hope they'd lean towards squares that they
were confident they could put across without stressing the
dancers' readiness to remain cheerful in the face of confusion.

--Jim

>  
> Sex Change Dance
> Mixer
> from Ted Sanella
[Sannella]
>  
> Couple One Swing at Home and Promenade the outside of the Ring
> All the way, Man One stop at home, Woman One keep going to the left side of Gent Three
> Those Three go Forward to the middle and Stand There Pat
> Side Couples R&L Thru—Around the Line of Three
> Lonely Gent “Do Si Do” around the Threesome then
> Lonely Gent: Right Hand Round with Partner, Left Hand Round with Woman Three
> Left Elbow Round with Gent Three,

[Is Left Hand Round followed by Left Elbow Round really what
you (Erik) meant?  --js]

> and Take Him Home!

[I presume that at this point Gent 3 takes on the role of
Lady 1 and vice versa.  Right? --js]

>  
> Everybody Home with Partner Swing
>  
> —Four times around and all have changed sex roles.  Four more times, and all are back “home”

[As I understand it, the second round would be led by Couple 2,
and would swap Lady 2 with Gent 4.  Then the next round would
be led by "Couple 3" but with the role of "Gent 3" being danced
by the original Lady 1.  And so on.  --js]