[Callers] Calling to a square dance crowd

Aahz Maruch via Callers callers at lists.sharedweight.net
Mon Feb 22 08:42:55 PST 2016


On Mon, Feb 22, 2016, Jerome Grisanti via Callers wrote:
> 
> One other thing you might encounter is different interpretations of
> language and timing. So for example I've seen MWSD groups perform a
> "do-si-do" as a four-count swing rather than an 8-count back-to-back. And
> I've seen chains take six counts, with the other two counts spent wondering
> why the caller hasn't prompted the next move already.

These are *not* standard MWSD timings.  In fact, the official timing for
dosado is six beats (eight from static square), and I got into an
argument with an MWSD caller a few years back when he claimed that it
was, is, and always shall be eight and only eight beats for dosado.  Then
he was flummoxed when I pulled out my smartphone and showed him that
CALLERLAB disagreed with him.

(Some of y'all might guess exactly which caller I'm referring to by the
way I'm phrasing this. ;-)

Similarly, I've seen instructors at caller schools beating on callers who
fail to properly give the dancers enough time for "up to the middle and
back".

OTOH, it's sadly true that (as other posts in this thread have noted)
square dancers and callers mostly don't pay much attention to phrasing.
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