[Callers] Great dances for learning how to dance with ghosts?

[jim saxe]

On Apr 6, 2018, at 3:49 PM, Yoyo Zhou via Callers <callers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

> I recall reading something, possibly from Jim Saxe on this list (and maybe from Larry Jennings?), about how in most dances without out-of-minor-set interactions, you come back into the set ... once - after progressing to the end. But in dances like The Hobbit, where you leave the minor set once, you actually come back in to the set 3 times. ...

That would have been from me in a message to this list on July 9,
2014 with the subject "An observation about end effects -- becoming
neutral three times at each end".

     https://www.mail-archive.com/callers@lists.sharedweight.net/msg07945.html

Based on the meager response at the time, I fear that few readers
got my point (though it looks like Yoyo was one who did).  For the
TL;DR crowd, here's the short version:

     In almost every contra with even a simple out-of-minor-set
     action, dancers who reach the top or bottom will become
     neutral and return to the body of the set not twice but at
     least *THREE* different times.

I'm not going to give an example.  I think that anyone who picks
a few examples of dances with out-of-minor-set action and actually
takes the trouble to trace the end effects carefully will see, now
that I've pointed it out, that what I've said is true.  And anyone
who won't take that trouble to do that probably also wouldn't take
the trouble to study my analysis of an example if I gave one.

In case anyone's wondering about my terminology, I won't try to
give definitions of "out-of-minor-set action" and "neutral" that
cover every unusual situation, but here are some remarks about
common situations that should make my meaning clear:

    If you leave your partner to dance with a shadow and then
    return to your partner, or if you leave a neighbor to dance
    with a future neighbor or a previous neighbor and then return
    to the first neighbor, I count that as an out-of-minor-set
    action.  If a dance merely has you and your partner progress
    to new neighbors in the middle of the tune (instead of at the
    transition from B2 to A1), and you stay in that new foursome
    until the same point in the next round of the dance, then I
    don't count it as out-of-minor-set action.  I also don't count
    merely taking hands in long lines with a shadow or a past or
    future neighbor while you still have your partner or your
    current neighbor in the other hand.

    If dancers are doing something in groups of four, I count any
    dancers near the top or bottom to the set who aren't part of
    a complete foursome as neutral.  This includes the case where
    a pair dancers stand still during a diagonal ladies' chain
    or a diagonal right and left through because there's nobody
    to do it with.

    If most of the dancers are doing a two-person figure with
    partners, neighbors, or shadows on the sides of the set,
    then I count as neutral any dancers at the top or bottom
    who are (1) standing still, (2) "dancing with ghosts", or
    (3) dancing the figure with someone *across* the set
    (possibly a partner or shadow acting as a neighbor).

--Jim