[Organizers] How do you, as organizers, support/encourage/manifest inclusivity at your dances?

[Luke Donforth]

I tossed a few bullet points up there, but figured I'd elaborate here;
since it's more conducive to discussion.

Having everyone who is currently in the hall involved in any lesson before
the regular dance does a lot to help inclusion. It lets everyone meet more
folks than during the mill around between dances, and sets the expectation
that new dancers will dance with experienced dancers and vice versa
(assuming you're including partner mixing, which I strongly support in most
circumstances). I try to keep my lesson to less than 15 minutes, so it's
not a big obligation to the experienced dancers in the hall (and continue
to welcome people to join if they get there late).

Wherever your dance falls in terms of the terms used for the different
roles (i.e. where you are after a swing), you can emphasize that anyone can
dance either role. Modelling that as dancing organizers (two folks who
present as male dancing together), as well as asking callers to announce it
from the mic "I'll be using the terms Gents and Ladies to refer to dance
roles, but anyone can dance either role."

On Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 3:51 PM Luke Donforth <luke.donforth at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I tossed a few bullet points up there, but figured I'd elaborate here;
> since it's more conducive to discussion.
>
> Having everyone who is currently in the hall involved in any lesson before
> the regular dance does a lot to help inclusion. It lets everyone meet more
> folks than during the mill around between dances, and sets the expectation
> that new dancers will dance with experienced dancers and vice versa
> (assuming you're including partner mixing, which I strongly support in most
> circumstances). I try to keep my lesson to less than 15 minutes, so it's
> not a big obligation to the experienced dancers in the hall (and continue
> to welcome people to join if they get there late).
>
> Wherever your dance falls in terms of the terms used for the different
> roles (i.e. where you are after a swing), you can emphasize that anyone can
> dance either role. Modelling that as dancing organizers (two folks who
> present as male dancing together), as well as asking callers to announce it
> from the mic "I'll be using the terms Gents and Ladies to refer to dance
> roles, but anyone can dance either role."
>
> On Sun, Dec 16, 2018 at 10:50 PM Winston, Alan P. via Organizers <
> organizers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>
>> Organizers --
>>
>> What do you do or have seen others do to build inclusivity at your
>> dances?
>>
>> What is your vision of inclusivity?
>>
>> Culturally, how do you balance a culture of consent (nobody *owes*
>> anybody else a dance, you can refuse without explanation at any time and
>> dance with somebody else) with a culture of inclusion where anybody who
>> walks in the door, whether they're new dancers, middle-aged women, newish
>> dancers in the zone between "let's take care of the first-timers" and being
>> experienced dancers who can take care of  themselves, etc. can be genuinely
>> welcome and can dance as much as they want to without feeling like they're
>> part of an out group?
>>
>> I was discussing this with Seth Tepfer and he set up a google doc to
>> collect ideas.  It'd be rude to make people on the list go there to
>> participate in this discussion and that format is bad for clarifying
>> questions anyway, so you may certainly update that document but you can
>> also just post here and I'll try to add new ideas to the doc.
>>
>>
>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vwc-weK43t9nJ94LJIQg6UxiUeP8iqT1_VvqZO7P6z4
>>
>> Doc contents right now:
>>
>> '
>>
>>    1.
>>
>>    Caller can be encouraged to program circle and scatter mixers. After
>>    the circle or scatter mix, the caller can say 'keep this parter for the
>>    next dance.
>>    2.
>>
>>    Callers and dance organizers can reserve the first 1/3 of the evening
>>    to only dancing with new dancers. Role model this behavior for other
>>    experienced dancers
>>    3.
>>
>>    During the early 1/3 of the evening, the organization can welcome
>>    everybody, and applaud the new dancers
>>    4.
>>
>>    Nametags for everyone.
>>    5.
>>
>>    We used to have nametags saying (it's my 1st/2nd/3rd time here: ask
>>    me to dance)
>>    6.
>>
>>    Caller's can remind folks to ask the people sitting out to dance.
>>    7.
>>
>>    Try to discourage booking ahead. Talk about why booking ahead is
>>    detrimental to your community - on listservs, in signs, at post dance
>>    gathering.
>>
>> (I'm an organizer for the Palo Alto Contra dance, an English dance
>> series, and some camps, and an English/Victorian/Regency/Contra caller.
>> Even if what organizers can do is what callers can do, the organizers can
>> tell the callers to do what they can do, so caller suggestions are
>> appropriate here.)
>>
>>
>>
>> -- Alan
>> _______________________________________________
>> Organizers mailing list
>> Organizers at lists.sharedweight.net
>> http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/organizers-sharedweight.net
>>
>
>
> --
> Luke Donforth
> luke.donforth at gmail.com
>
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