[Callers] Calling at Free Folk Festival

[jim saxe via Callers]

Clare,

I've called at the SF Free Folk Festival before.  As Nick says,
you can expect to see a fair number of experienced contra dancers
there.  This was true even last year, when SFFFF was also a one-day
event with the evening contra opposite the Palo Alto contra, and I
think the San Rafael contra as well.  I wouldn't worry about losing
a ton of contra dancers to the blues/fusion dance. While some contra
dancers have eclectic tastes, quite a few stick to contras only.
Of course, you can also expect to have a much higher proportion of
total newbies and very occasional (and "rusty") contra dancers than
typical at a regular contra series.

You should be quite able to call simple duple minor contras, not
"barn dance" repertoire.  And I'd expect to have quite a few people
there (a significant minority if not a majority) who do know the
difference.

You wrote: 

>  ... (low piece count, connected, easy single progression, stays in
> minor set, etc) ...

Those are all good ideas in this situation.  Another point to note
is whether any move that could be tricky for complete newbies (e.g.,
roll away with a half sashay, or the courtesy turn in a "right and
left through") is done with a series of different neighbors or with
the same partner each time.  If it's done with partners, a pair of
new dancers dancing together could repeatedly end up in the wrong
place or facing the wrong direction.  To keep the significant
contingent of experienced dancers from getting ticked off you'll
need to include partner swings in most, if not all, contras.  If
a couple persistently ends with the "lady" on the left, you'd like
the dance to be such that an easy recovery follows, or at least
such that the pocket of disorganization stays small and doesn't
spread up and down the set.

> It’s in a high school gym, so I know to keep calls short and clear due to acoustics.

Acoustics can definitely be a problem at SFFFF.  I'd say to keep
calls _long_ and clear:

    FACE aCROSS; LADies CHAIN

instead of

    - - - CHAIN

and

    GENTleMEN LEFT alleMANDE

instead of

    - - MEN allemande LEFT

and

    LONG LINES FORward GO

instead of

    - - FORward and BACK

Newbies typically have slower reaction time to the calls than
experienced dancers have, and they also don't have as good a
sense of when the phrase is coming around.  And even if they've
been told "better never than late," they may not appreciate how
to put that into practice.  Even with a four-beat call instead 
of a one- or two-beat call, you may occasionally see a couple
continue to swing a whole time around *after* you deliver the
last word of the call for the next action.

Try to project your voice into the mic, enunciate clearly, and
choose calls with not too many syllables per beat.

You might ask one of the other callers, or some other person
you trust, to listen at the back of the room while you teach and
call and to check on whether your words can be heard clearly
through the music and/or conversational buzz.  You might even
make this request of the sound tech, perhaps wording it as a
request to check on *your* enunciation and mic technique.

--Jim