[Callers] Star 1/2 -> Star 1/2?

[Yoyo Zhou]

Luke,

A couple of concerns about your dance:

- Second version: Your dance appears to be reverse progression, if you
begin the left hand stars with the neighbor you just swung. It's not
entirely clear though (that neighbor isn't numbered).

- First version: If instead you force the progression to be in the normal
direction in the first version, note that you're already progressed past
neighbor #2 after the swing and chain, so it becomes a double progression.

Other than that, it looks like a fairly simple setting of star-halfway to
star-halfway. I believe there will be end effects though, meaning sometimes
you come in with the gent on the right and lady on the left. It looks like
you have about 4 counts for each star, which looks right to me.


One well-known dance that makes use of a star-halfway to star-halfway
figure is Dutch Crossing. However, its mechanics are slightly different
from most contras (including mine below) since the stars meet at the
corners instead of the sides.


You may be interested in my 4-facing-4 dance Constellation:

A1:
lines of 4 forward and back
(in groups of 4) ladies chain up/down
A2:
(in groups of 4) left hand star 1/2
(center 4) right hand star 1/2
(in groups of 4) left hand star 1/2
(center 4) right hand star 1/2
B1:
N balance, swing (the one you chained to)
B2:
(in groups of 4) circle left 3/4; P swing, face the next

[The timing for star halfway is 4 counts.]

Despite the simplicity of the instructions, it's a hard dance because of
the stars halfway, as Chris alludes to. Here are some of the places that
dancers can get lost:

- You're traveling through the stars as a group with your partner, and the
gent is always in the lead (changes stars first). If you miss a star
transition, it's not really recoverable until the balance and swing. So if
you and your partner don't get it, you just end up having a bad time.
- As in most 4 facing 4s, your pattern alternates each time through.
- How far is halfway? It's sooner than you think, especially for the gents.
If it takes 1-2 counts to switch between stars, you only get to spend 2-3
counts actually holding each star.
- When you're not in the center group of 4, you and your partner have to
stay put, but you should remain improper and not try to change places.
- There could be some confusion with the switch in orientation from up/down
to across the hall in the first star.

As the caller, when prompting this, timing is very tight - basically as
soon as the dancers enter one star, you have to start prompting the next.
The band also has to pick a suitable tune with short phrases.

Cheers,
Yoyo Zhou

On Sun, Apr 22, 2018 at 6:48 AM, Chris Page via Callers <
callers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

> Just a heads-up.
>
> There's a number of ECD dances, especially 4-couple set dances, that have a
> sequence of progressive 1/2 stars.
>
> When teaching them, I find them to be the hardest part of the dance for
> dancers,
> and where it's most likely to break down.
>
> So the difficulty level may be more than you expect.
>
> -Chris Page
> San Diego
>
> On Sat, Apr 21, 2018 at 7:05 PM, Luke Donforth via Callers
> <callers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
> > I was recently thinking about star to star transitions. There are lots of
> > great dances that go star 1x to opposite hand star 1x (such as Lisa
> > Greenleaf's "Poetry in Motion", Robert Cromartie's "Al's Safeway
> Produce",
> > Linda Leslie's "Burlington Spirit"...); and then there are the star ->
> same
> > hand star dances (Mike Richardson's "Star Trek", my "Voyager", Dugan
> > Murphey's "The Next Generation"...)
> >
> > Are there dances that use star just half way -> with next, opposite hand
> > star 1/2 way? I'm envisioning something with a bit of a zig-zag feel, but
> > that could be done in crowded dance halls where you don't want folks
> > swooping out laterally (like John Coffman's "Boys of Urbana"), but more
> > connected than a single file promenade snake like Cary Ravitz's "March of
> > the Coffee Zombies".
> >
> > Are there already dances out there like this?
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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