Ah! the trials and tribulations of what some of us call The One Night
Stand Dance. Many of us have learned that, when calling to a group of
beginners, hands-four dances come way late in the evening, if at all.
Right & left thru, women chain, progressing, are all big challenges for
beginners. Even understanding the line is a challenge.
You might want to purchase a book or two on the subject. Dudley's
/Traditional Barn Dances with Calls/, is a great one, as are Marian
Rose's /Step Lively /books, and The New England Dancing Masters books.
And, of course, I could use this for unsolicited self promotion, as I
wrote a book called /Old-Time Dance Calling for Weddings, Parties, and
One-Night Stands/. ($18 to be mailed to you, $15 if you come get it...).
~erik hoffman
On 3/27/2015 7:47 AM, Brooks Hart via Callers wrote:
> So, as the original poster, I am reporting back.
>
> The dance with the solo fiddler was a mixed bag. The music was very
> nice, but because I am new to calling, and our dancers are 99%
> beginners, way too much time was spent on walk-throughs and teaching.
> The fiddler sat out for long stretches of time, which seemed like a
> waste of his time and the money spent on live music.
>
> I thought I had picked easy dances, but you wouldn't believe how
> confounded so many of the people were at "right and left through",
> and that falls on me and my lack of experience with teaching and
> crowd wrangling.
>
> A special moment for everyone, though, was doing a circle waltz dance
> with the fiddler playing, unplugged, in the center of the circle.
>
> So, thanks again for everyone's input and encouragement,
> Brooks
>
>
>
>
> > Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2015 03:50:51 -0700
> > To: callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
> > Subject: Re: [Callers] Solo fiddler or recorded music?
> > From: callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
> >
> > [resting up before the CALLERLAB convention, catching up on some older
> > messages]
> >
> > On Thu, Mar 05, 2015, Neal Schlein via Callers wrote:
> > >
> > > So, the moral of the story is that if a caller isn't USED to
> working with a
> > > band, live music isn't necessarily going to result in the best
> experience
> > > for the dancers.
> >
> > My experience as a relatively new caller is that it also depends on the
> > caller's experience as a dancer. My hearing makes it a bit difficult to
> > tune into the phrasing of a live band to call at the correct times, but
> > because I've been contra dancing for so many years (almost
> exclusively to
> > live music) I can roughly manage it -- and I know what it's supposed to
> > sound like.
> > --
> > Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 http://rule6.info/
> > <*> <*> <*>
> > Help a hearing-impaired person: http://rule6.info/hearing.html
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
> > http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/callers-sharedweight.net
>
>
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Bill wrote about dizziness:
> To put this into "real life" perspective, I have only had dancers
> complain about ONE DANCE in this regard and that's Carol Ormand's "You
> Can't Get There From Here" which has a LOT of CCW motion.. I have to
> also add that some dancers have actually REQUESTED this dance because
> they love it so much!!! (xxoo Carol if you're reading this) So how do
> you deal with this from a dance programming perspective??.. keep
> things varied I guess..
In the 80s a few of us called Dan Pearl's dance, Rendezvous "The
Chiropractor's Delight," Circle left, circle left swing for 16 counts.
We figured all that leftness would require a back-cracking adjustment....
~erik hoffman
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Yup. Archive problems. I am in the process of getting everything back
in working order. Will probably be another month or two before it's all
straightened out again.
Seth
On 03/08/2015 04:04 PM, Don Veino via Callers wrote:
> Just FYI, something seems to be off for that list's archives. Clicking
> on links in the matrix by month list brings up Organizers' list posts.
> See http://lists.sharedweight.net/pipermail/musicians-sharedweight.net/ .
>
> On Sun, Mar 8, 2015 at 3:51 PM, jill allen via Callers
> <callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
> <mailto:callers@lists.sharedweight.net>> wrote:
>
> Just wanted to let you all know that the shared weight email list
> for musicians has been reinvigorated!
>
> Myself (KS), Max Newman (MA), and Susie Lorand (MI) are on a CDSS
> Task Group about dance musicians. Our ultimate goal is to explore
> the unique needs of dance musicians, and an immediate goal is to
> help musicians to connect with each other and share resources.
> Since this list already exists and has members, simply asking a
> few questions has brought it out of the cobwebs. It's starting to
> buzz...
>
> Please join, or share the following link with your musician friends.
>
> Jill Allen
>
> http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/musicians-sharedweight.net
>
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>
>
>
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