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

[jim saxe]

On Apr 11, 2018, at 5:18 AM, Tom Hinds <twhinds at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Jim, maybe the meager response was because you didn't give an example.  And what does "the DL;TR crowd" mean?


I didn't give an explicit example in my 2014 message

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

but I did go into more detail about the general pattern than in my
recent posting.  And I fear that as a result some people glanced
at my message, decided it was too long, and didn't read it.
(TL;DR = "too long; didn't read".)  In our current thread, Yoyo
pointed out that "The Hobbit" is an example, and he identified
the three different points where neutral dancers reenter the set.

A simpler example is "Lisa's Contra", mentioned earlier in this
thread by Mark Hillegonds.  Here, with a little reformatting, is
how Mark notated it:

     Lisa’s Contra
     by Tom Hinds
     Contra/Improper/Int

     A1 -----------
         (16)  Neighbor B & S
     A2 -----------
         (4,4)  Pass thru to a wave,     Wave balance
         (2,4,2)  Walk forward to person in next wave
             (don't take hands),  Gypsy R 1/2,  Walk back
             to re-form original wave, but facing opposite
             direction (N in RH, Gents LH)
     B1 -----------
         (4,4)  Wave balance, Gents alle L 1/2
         (8)  Partner swing
     B2 -----------
         (6,2)  Circle L 3/4, Pass thru up and down
         (8)  Next Neighbor do si do

[For Tom's original notation and notes, see page 15 of his book
_Bad Hair Decade_.]

This dance includes just one out-of-minor-set action:  In the
A2 part, you briefly leave your current neighbors to gypsy (or
"walk around" or whatever you want to call it) with your previous
neighbor.  The result is that when you get to the top or bottom
of the line, you experience THREE pairs of transitions out and
back in, as follows:

     * In B2 of some round of the dance, you pass through up or
       down and the here's no new neighbor to dance with.
       [So this is the first time you go out.]

     * In A2 of the next round, you briefly come back in [for
       the first time] to g**** your previous neighbor.


     * Then you immediately go back out [for the second time].

     * In B2, a new neighbor approaches and you come in [2nd
       time] starting with the do-si-do.


     * In A2 of the next round, you step forward from your
       wave and there's no old neighbor coming toward you
       along the line.  [You've just gone out for the third
       time.]  You could dance around a "ghost" or you could
       treat your partner (across the set) as a neighbor.

     * Then you return to a new wave with the neighbors you
       just briefly left.  [That's the third time you come
       back in.  You now remain in until you get to the
       other end of the set or the music stops.]

I could give other examples, but really all you need to do is
pick almost any dance where you go out of your minor set (to
dance with a previous neighbor, future neighbor, or shadow)
and then return.  If you analyze the end effects carefully,
you'll usually find that dancers go out (become neutral) and 
come back in at least three times.  It's actually harder to
find examples where they go out and come back in exactly
twice.

Often, the thing to do in order to come back in in the right
position is so obvious to experienced contra dancers that
we hardly notice there's a decision to be made.  We just do
the obvious/habitual thing and it turns out to be right.  I
think that's part of the reason that the commonness of the
(out-in)x3 pattern could go unnoticed for so long by so many
people.  I don't know of anyone who wrote about it before I
noticed it in 2013 (if anyone does, please tell me).  And by
then I must have experienced it myself hundreds of times, if
not a thousand or more in 30+ years of dancing, without
really noticing.

--Jim