The ones I know are:
Ricochet Hey #1 (no idea who wrote it, sorry)
Contra; Improper
Start in lines of four facing down, #1s in the middle
A1: Down the Hall in Lines of Four; Turn Alone
Up the Hall in Lines of Four; #1s face #2s
A2: Full Hey: normal Hey for #1s; Ricochet Hey for #2s
B1: Neighbour Balance & Swing
B2: Long Lines Forward & Back
#1s Swing - end facing down to pick up next #2s
Rolling Hey (by Charley Harvey)
Contra; Improper
A1: Circle Left; Neighbor Swing
A2: Circle Left 3/4; Partner Swing
B1: Star Right; Ladies' Chain
B2: Ricochet Hey for all - start with Ladies into the centre on a
slight Right diagonal; push back on a slight Left diagonal, then step to
the right; Men do the same, starting with the step to the right; REPEAT)
- so no-one ever crosses the set during the Hey.
Ladies keep moving to the right into a new circle. Men turn to
their left out of the last push into a new circle.
Happy dancing,
John
John Sweeney, Dancer, England john(a)modernjive.com 01233 625 362 &
07802 940 574
http://www.contrafusion.co.uk for Contra Dancing in Kent
The key thing for the caller to understand is that when the two dancers
ricochet they take each other's place in the hey, and are now going
backwards.
This means that they must NOT just bounce back the way they came, or to
a neutral position on their own side - they have to follow the looping
flow of the hey.
I never actually explain that though. I just tell them to bounce back
at the opposite angle to the way they came in. Describing it as a
triangle usually helps. And one quick demo usually solves 90% of the
problems.
The other 10% of the problems come from people who bounce back and then
stop! They are still part of the hey and have to keep moving.
So instructions like these sometimes work: "As you come to the middle
you will meet someone on a diagonal; bounce off that person and head
backwards on the other diagonal, then move left* and come in again; you
are going around the same triangle over and over again."
*or right, depends on the dance.
Note: As you bounce you change direction by just under 90 degrees, it is
very easy to let that rotation continue and throw a couple of spins in
:-)
Happy dancing,
John
John Sweeney, Dancer, England john(a)modernjive.com 01233 625 362 &
07802 940 574
http://www.modernjive.com for Modern Jive Events, Instructional DVDs and
Interactive Maps
http://www.contrafusion.co.uk for Contra Dancing in Kent
Back in Feb 2008, Jean Francis said:
"I am looking for some dances with push-back or ricochet heys. I have only found
one... Heard of another called Tapsalterrie, but can't find."
As it so happens, I was searching the list for discussion about how to teach
that very dance! So here it is:
Carlson Tapsalteerie Becket contra, improper
Author unknown.
A1 (8) LL F&B
(8) Gents Al-R 1½, pass P by L-Sh
A2 (16) Tapsalteerie Hey:
Ladies cross ½ hey, Gents push back
Gents cross ½ hey, Ladies push back
B1 (16) P – B&Sw
B2 (8) Ladies Al-R 1½
(8) N – Sw
I tried calling it for the first time last week, and the mutual ricochet-hey
proved challenging for dancers. Any suggestions for clear, efficient explanation
of that move would be most appreciated.
also, does anyone know the author?
BTW, "Tapsalteerie" is Scots for "topsy-turvy. Great word, eh?
Jean, hope this can still do you some good. :-p
Tina
This has been a very interesting thread so far. I think that we all mean
well and want to be as inclusive as possible. That's a really positive and
commendable goal! I also think that we sometimes work so hard to not alienate
groups that we end up alienating everyone or making things confusing to all.
I prefer to use gender-specific terms for most dances when I am calling for
adults. This has always worked well for me, even when there is a marked
gender imbalance. I have *never* had anyone come up to me to complain about
this. I have had a couple of female caller friends get on their soap boxes to
complain about "traditional" square dance calls. I usually shoot for using
less gender-specific dances when I am working with children, depending upon
the group.
I have never attended, nor been asked to call a gender-free dance in my 30
years of calling, but I would be open to using whatever terminology/markers
a group is used to using. Most of my calling has been for the "usual" contra
dance crowd, ONS dances, Civil War balls, and open square dances.
Terminology has just not been an issue for any of these groups. Whatever works for a
given dance community is hunky-dory with me. Just don't push your views on
those who are happy with the way things are.
John B. Freeman, SFTPOCTJ
I was hired to call a dance and noticed, when I arrived, that there
were only two other men in the room besides myself. When I commented
on this I was informed that the group who hired me was a local
lesbian club. They specifically asked that I not make any
accommodations, even though many of them were new to contras. I
believe that they made a point of NOT informing me of their makeup
specifically so that I would not try to dance around the gender specific terms.
It worked out very well. All had a great time, and this in spite of
the fact that there were also two deaf dancers in the room as well.
Attitude is a key factor. I understand a lot of dances were called
here in California at mining towns during the gold rush. The men
danced with each other and half of them played the part of ladies. I
don't think they ever asked for "gender neutral" terms. A few shots
of whisky probably helped as well.
- Greg
*******
At 10:02 AM 12/2/2010, Susie wrote:
> I have been asked to call for a new dance group forming in a small town
> near our regular dance. Experienced dancers were asked to come help
> these absolute newbies, and some local musicians have volunteered their
> services. It became obvious that about half the dancers were lesbians
> who asked me to use non gender specific terms when calling. I tried
> 'lead' and 'follow' because the syllable numbers worked, but I'm not
> happy with that. I also had some regular dancers comment on not wanting
> to deal with 'some' peoples' political agendas as related to contra
> calling. I have never dealt with gender free calling and would
> appreciate ANY help from those of you who may have been doing it for
> years. What terms seem to work best? Any other hints to make things go
> more smoothly? These people are very enthusiastic and I want to see
> the dance succeed.
>_______________________________________________
>Callers mailing list
>Callers(a)sharedweight.net
>http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers
I have been asked to call for a new dance group forming in a small town
near our regular dance. Experienced dancers were asked to come help
these absolute newbies, and some local musicians have volunteered their
services. It became obvious that about half the dancers were lesbians
who asked me to use non gender specific terms when calling. I tried
'lead' and 'follow' because the syllable numbers worked, but I'm not
happy with that. I also had some regular dancers comment on not wanting
to deal with 'some' peoples' political agendas as related to contra
calling. I have never dealt with gender free calling and would
appreciate ANY help from those of you who may have been doing it for
years. What terms seem to work best? Any other hints to make things go
more smoothly? These people are very enthusiastic and I want to see
the dance succeed.
On Fri, 3 Dec 2010 23:13:55 -0500,
Amy Cann <acann(a)putneyschool.org> wrote:
> Here's a thought I've been toying with for a while:
>
> A term we use in knitting to identify which way yarn twists is "N-wise
> or Z-wise"
>
> (think of a piece of yarn, look at the slanty lines the plies make, look
> at the center slashes of an N, then a Z. See it?)
>
> How many moves could be identified this way?
>
> "Facing up and down, the first corners on the N diagonal, allemande
> once and a half."
> "Facing across, Z diagonals start a hey by the left"
> "Facing across, N's diagonal chain"
You could do that, but it may be less confusing to just identify whether it's the person on the right or left in the couple:
"Facing up and down, people on the RIGHT allemande once and a half"
"Facing across, people on the LEFT start a hey, passing left shoulders"
"Facing across, person on the RIGHT chain across"
That being said, the one time I called a gender-free dance I just used "bares" and "bands", since that what the dance organizers directed me to do -- I just followed what was their custom, and it worked out fine
Mark Widmer / central NJ
Hooting out a cheer for Amy Cann's entire post re music for dancing. Hallelujah sister. So glad you are out there to offer your 20cents and more. Am sending all of it on to our All-Comers Band leaders as food for thought.
> Newer bands often do things that are "cool" but deadly. One is to pick
> inscrutable tunes -- so inscrutable that noone is quite sure where the A
> part is.
>
> I would probably encourage them to listen to some of the seminal Canterbury
> orchestra/Yankee Ingenuity type albums and start with the chestnuts --
> there's a reason those tunes became "canon." Listen to how the tunes are
> matched -- what are the keys, the personalities? Why do those medleys work?
> There are newer dance-length CD's by longtime bands that are also excellent.
>
> If they already have their own favorite repertoire, have them at least
> screen out the old time tunes where the A and B parts are different by only
> one note -- and the Celtic tunes where they're different by all 64. A good
> dance tune should have a recognizable shape, be kindof singable -- have a
> good mix of note values, neither all sparse quarters or relentless machine
> gun sixteenths.
>
Another cheer for Alan Winston's closing commentary:
> I also think people who insist on
> doing that when it freaks out their neighbors are valuing their own fun more
> highly than the comfort of other people there and are behaving in an
> anti-communitarian way - which is their perfect right, but it's not an
> unalloyed good.
>
> And some of the people who are freaked out are freaked out because if somebody
> they're not expecting comes at them they think somebody (maybe them) are in the
> wrong place and their anxiety level goes up. Not homophobia - just hanging
> onto the dance by their fingernails. That's a good thing to be aware of when
> you're swapping sides in gendered contra land.
>
And a final cheer for Seth and Chris whose great idea of this list has netted so many valuable exchanges since inception.
Chrissy Fowler
Belfast, ME
A Rainbow contra dance was recently started here in Seattle. After much
research and discussion, the organizer decided she wanted callers to use
"lead" and "follow." The callers are emphasizing personal choice in
whichever role the dancer wants to play and that they're allowed to switch
throughout the evening and negotiate with each partner who's going to play
each role.
I have a personal dislike for ties, bands, bandannas, etc., because it
hampers movement on the dance floor and doesn't allow for changing roles
easily as you dance. If a person is coming toward you with an outstretched
hand for an allemande, why not assume they know what they're doing instead
of trying to figure out whether they're dancing the "right" role?
I've heard the argument that contra leading/following isn't the same as in
ballroom, but "lead" and "follow" seem less offensive to me than using
gender-specific terms in a gender-free dance. Yes, it's more of a
negotiation than leading in ballroom or swing or blues, but if you can get
past the idea that the lead is actually dictating every move for the follow,
then I think these terms are about as good as any.
Someone suggested using "ones" and "twos," but I'm not seeing how you would
then distinguish between active and inactive couples.
The bathrooms at the Saturn Cafe in Santa Cruz are gender-neutral and use
the terms "robots" and "aliens." How about it? :)
-Marianne
Hi,
We have a group of musicians getting together a band for a new
contra series (hurray!). They are mostly experienced musicians (old
time, celtic) but not for dancing, and most (unfortunately) aren't
dancers. Does anyone have any tune sets of common tunes that they
particularly like? Having had the experience of calling to a rather
amorphous (phrase wise) tune set put together by wonderful musicians
but non dancers, I'd like to recommend for our group some good, solid
core tune sets for a starting repertoire.
Thanks!
Sue Robishaw, Upper Peninsula of Michigan
PS - Anyone know of a set dance musician's list similar to this one?
