[Callers] Calling techno?

[Maia McCormick]

Ah, whoops, wrong link:
http://contra.maiamccormick.com/blog/2019/04/07/techno-reflections/

On Sun, Apr 7, 2019 at 12:26 PM Maia McCormick <maiamcc at gmail.com> wrote:

> (And if anyone wants to refer back to this, it's up on my blog
> <http://contra.maiamccormick.com/blog/2019/03/31/techno-reflections/>!)
>
> On Sun, Mar 31, 2019 at 4:27 PM Maia McCormick <maiamcc at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Thanks for the advice, all! While it's fresh in my mind, wanted to report
>> back and call out a few pieces of advice from this thread that were
>> particularly helpful (or that I ignored to my own detriment). Just my
>> observations--hope this is helpful to someone!
>>
>> *1. Demos are indeed hard*
>> I agree with everyone who warned me away from demos at a techno -- it's
>> dark and hard to see, and dancers just want to groove. "If you need a demo
>> for it, the dance is probably too hard" was a great yardstick for my
>> programming, thanks Chuck!
>>
>> *2. Keep calling*
>> Jonathan nailed it -- if the phrasing is at all hard to follow, dancers
>> will tend to swing too long. I definitely found myself calling more than I
>> would in a non-techno contra (by the end of the dances, my calls were all
>> one beat, but I was often still calling at least some moves). Knowing to
>> look out for over-long swings in particular was super helpful, thanks!
>>
>> *3. Choose easy dances*
>> I got cocky in the second half and programmed some stuff that was above
>> the level of the crowd, and had to fall back to Hey in the Barn when a
>> weird box circulate dance fell apart. The advice that many people gave is
>> super sound -- it's harder to see and harder to focus, dancers probably
>> just want to groove etc., and so easier dances are the way to go.
>>
>> I want to add one more thing I noticed, which is that *I as a caller
>> couldn't get a read on the hall because it was so dark*. If I'd been
>> better able to see how ropy the previous dance had been, or that a lot of
>> the experienced people had left at the break, I would have been better able
>> to adjust my program. So there's another point in favor of calling easier
>> dances -- not so much that they dancers can't handle it, as a rule, but
>> rather that you as a caller can't tell as easily whether the dancers can
>> handle it.
>>
>> *4. If you can, listen to the tracks in advance!*
>> I worked with Mark Moore (DJ Flourish) from Philly--he's great! Among
>> other things, he sent me his tracks in advance, which meant that I could
>> get extra precise with the dance/track pairing--super helpful because it's
>> much harder to request specific track features to go with a dance when
>> working with a DJ than with a band. Also, I knew how many potatoes to
>> expect for each track, if they were at all fake-out-y, etc.
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 5:17 PM Maia McCormick <maiamcc at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Ah, more specific questions!
>>>
>>> - have you found on-the-floor demos doable at techno, or should I not
>>> even try?
>>> - techno no-walk-through's: do they work?
>>>
>>> On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 5:13 PM Maia McCormick <maiamcc at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hey folks,
>>>>
>>>> I haven't called all that many techno contras, and I'm slated to do so
>>>> this weekend. Any tips or things to keep in mind about how techno differs
>>>> from your standard contra evening? (Particularly curious about anything
>>>> relating to dance choice and dance length.)
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Maia
>>>>
>>>
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