[Organizers] Transition to ungendered dances

[jim saxe]

On Aug 9, 2019, at 9:56 AM, Heitzso via Organizers <organizers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

> I know that this evening, in Atlanta, Seth Tepfer will intentionally call role-less dances (no reference to gents/ladies/larks/whatever).

I'd be interested in learning more details about what Seth does and about how it works in practice.  Here are some specific things I'm wondering about and that anyone wanting to report might make a point of noticing:

For many dance sequences in the current contra repertoire, correct progression depends on some dancers identifying themselves as a dancer-who-ends-swings-on-the-left or as a dancer-who-ends-swings-on-the-right, regardless of whether or not the caller uses any specific set of names for those roles.  Of course, experienced dancers may be quite comfortable switching between those roles on the fly--for example, during a partner swing.  On the other hand, inexperienced dancers who inadvertently switch roles with their (equally inexperienced) partners may be disconcerted to find themselves doing some subsequent figure on the opposite side of the set from where they expected to do it, or having difficulty finding their shadow (even when the potential shadows are not engaging in role-switcing with their own partners).  Dancers who inadvertently end a neighbor swing in the wrong place could experience various difficulties such as finding themselves catty-corner to their respective partners, rather than adjacent, in a subsequent circle of four.  So what I'm wondering is this:

1.  Will Seth somehow stick to dance sequences in which identifying as a dancer-who-ends-swings-on-the-left or as a dancer-who-ends-swings-on-the-right is actually unimportant?  Or will he really be counting on dancers to identify themselves as having one of those roles, even if he contrives not to need to utter names for the roles out loud?  Or will he perhaps try to get around the issue by using other ways to tell people how to end their swings--for example, by saying whether each swing leaves you where you started it or makes you trade places with the other dancer.  (Note, however, that neither "trade places" nor "finish where you started" may apply when a neighbor swing is followed by "Down the hall four in line".)

2.  If the dances really do depend on people identifying themselves as dancer-who-end-swings-on-the-____ (with or without a short name for that idea), I'd be curious how often the dancers--and especially new or less-skilled dancers--seem to be swapping roles *indavertently* with partners or neighbors, and whether it seems of happen noticeably more or less often than at the usual local dances.

3.  If Seth chooses dances to avoid dancers needing to identify themselves by where they should end swings, I'd like to know whether the evening overall seems to involve an unusually large amount of quirky choreography.

And of course you might notice other details that seem worth reporting.

Thanks,

--Jim