[Callers] Dance logs and record-keeping

[Donald Perley]

Our dance format features multiple callers in an evening.  I recall
one week we had 2 of the callers call the same dance (different names
for the same
dance) and very few of the dancers noticed.  As mentioned, different
music (especially tempo and time signature) can make it feel like a
different dance.

On Tue, Mar 6, 2018 at 10:28 PM, Mac Mckeever via Callers
<callers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
> This seems to me to be a lot of effort with very little benefit.  There are
> thousands of dances and each caller has their own approach to programming.
> It is rare for a dance to be called two nights in a row.  When I do see that
> happening I often ask other dancers around me if they remember it - and no
> one ever has.
>
> How would the next caller get access to this info? The logistics would seem
> difficult and unnecessary.
>
> I do not even keep track of what dances I have called.  I start off fresh
> when planning a program.  If I called somewhere and they ask me back next
> year - no one will notice if a couple dances are the same. It probably means
> they were really good ones.
>
> I agree that a different band, etc can make the same dance feel very
> different and that a lot of dances are very similar.  It bothers me more
> when a caller programs an evening with several dances that all feel the
> same.
>
> Mac McKeever
> St Louis
>
>
> On Tuesday, March 6, 2018, 8:22:25 PM CST, Winston, Alan P. via Callers
> <callers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>
>
> Oddly enough, I was just in Seattle at the end of February and had a
> conversation about this with Lindsey Dono, who told me to my surprise that
> dancers at Lake City, at least, will complain about getting the same dance
> two weeks in a row, and said that there *was* a log kept of dances called
> locally.
>
> So, Amy, I suggest checking with Lindsey and see if the effort is already
> under way.
>
> In the SF Bay Area, I think our dance populations kinda slop around, so that
> while a core of people may go to the central Bay Area dances (SF, Berkeley,
> Palo Alto), East Bay people may also go to North Bay dances (San Rafael,
> Petaluma) and North Bay people may go to Berkeley or SF but not usually Palo
> Alto, while Monterey Bay people (Monterey, Santa Cruz) go to those dances
> and some come up to Palo Alto, and some South Bay people (Palo Alto, San
> Jose, etc) go to Santa Cruz or Monterey.  The result is that every dancer
> does the dances that are called at the dances they happen to go to, it would
> be a huge coordinating effort to keep all the dances at different dance
> series with somewhat-overlapping attendance separate, and nobody but callers
> seems to care anyway.
>
> For me personally, different band, different tune set pretty much equals
> different dance even with the same figures - but also dances that are 3/4
> the same figures as other dances feel like the same dances anyway.
>
> -- Alan
>
> On 3/6/2018 6:07 PM, Amy Wimmer via Callers wrote:
>
> Huh! I never thought of that for the dance we run. I keep a file of each gig
> and the dances I called at each. I also write on each dance card the date
> and location of each time I've called it, so I don't repeat myself too
> often.
>
> There's a record of contra dances called at Northwest Folklife Festival. I
> don't know how far back it goes.
>
> I'll talk to my fellow organizers about starting this at Emerald City Contra
> Dance.
>
> -Amy
>
> On Tue, Mar 6, 2018, 5:42 PM Kalia Kliban via Callers
> <callers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>
> Dance logs, a cumulative record for a series of which dances have been
> called on any given evening, are very common in the English dance
> community but vanishingly rare in the contra community.  Why is that?
> They're really helpful for incoming callers, and it's probably nice for
> the dancers not to keep getting the same dances week after week.
>
> I've only ever known of one contra series that kept a log, and it's
> probably because I suggested it when they started out (the Queer Contra
> series in Oakland, CA).  Are there any contra organizers out there who
> maintain a dance log?  Those of you who do, how do you get the dance
> lists from the callers?  The Oakland series had a little book on the
> stage and the callers would write their programs down as they went or at
> the end of the night.
>
> Part of it comes down to record-keeping on the part of the callers.  I
> keep a personal log of all the dances I've called so I can avoid
> repeating myself when I return to a given venue.  That makes it easy for
> me to produce a set list after the fact if an organizer wants to fill in
> a gap in the log.  Fellow contra callers, do you all keep records of
> what you call, and if you don't, how do you avoid repeating yourself or
> remember what worked well (or not) the last time you called at a
> particular place?
>
> If you work with something like Caller's Companion, do you update the
> program list with what you actually danced as opposed to what you
> programmed?
>
> Just curious about other people's process on this.
>
> Kalia in Sebastopol, CA
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