Hi all -
Have any of you called for a dance without a band? I've gotten a query about
calling a barn dance, but their budget is teeny tiny, so they asked if I could
call to CDs. I know this is quite possible; my dad used to call square dances to
records, but those records were specifically made for dancing to. Most contra
music tracks I have only last at most ~3 minutes. I could theoretically splice
the tracks together to make a repeating loop, but this is a lot of time
investment and also, how would you know when the music would stop, in order to
go out? Would you try to guess, or just unceremoniously turn the thing off, or
do the "mood fade?" (And no, sadly, I'm not like Alan Furth or Erik Hoffmann,
folks who can call and play guitar/fiddle/banjo//etc. well at the same time.)
Do you have any strategic ideas? Thanks!
Tina
OK fellow callers, shall we compile a nice big list/thread to serve as
reference to those in need, since this seems to keep coming up? Hit that
reply-with-quote button and let's share/compare...
(I'm leaving my answers off so this can be an easy template)
MY FAVORITE, MOST USEFUL, MOST USED RECORDED MUSIC:
Albums specifically recorded to be danceable for contras:
Albums specifically recorded to be danceable for other formations:
Albums not specifically intended for live dancing, but nonetheless
containing enough good material to be worth buying for that purpose:
Single tracks on otherwise not-always-danceable albums:
Non-contra recordings that work for dancing (klezmer, swing, etc):
I call about a dozen dances a year with no live music, just me and my iPod. My
preference is to work with musicians there, but as you say, there are some whose
budget just won't allow for that/
Tina, there are CDs available with longer pieces of music on them. One of my
favorites is called "Any Jig or Reel," with wonderful music by BEcky Tracy
(fiddle), Andy Davis (accordion), and Keith Murphy (guitar and piano and foot
percussion.) Other albums from New England Dancing Masters also have longer
cuts.
If you're calling New England style squares, then your typical pattern is 7
times through a tune, so you'll find plenty of cuts on other albums that are
that length, about 4 minutes.
Yes, it will take time at first, listening to your collection and notating each
album more carefully, but once you've done that, you're good to go. I used to
work from CDs but now MUCH prefer the flexibility and portability of my iPod. I
have friends who use a different sort of mp3 player... it's bulkier but it has
the advantage of variable speed control, so they can slow down a cut if need be.
David Millstone
Lebanon, NH
Hi Bill,
This is David Smukler, who has been putting the RPDLW syllabi online. The syllabi from before 1997 were not saved in electronic format, and so I'm afraid that they are not available. Sadly, they are no longer available in print form either, but I believe that the Dimond Library at the University of New Hampshire (host of the website) has copies all the way back. Perhaps one day they will be scanned, and then the archive will be more complete.
You may have noticed also that no syllabi were produced for 1988, 1989, 1992, or 1993. The dances from 88 and 93 appear in the index anyway (without page numbers) because for those years I found lists kept by Ted Sannella of every dance that was done during the weekend. I suspect Ted kept similar lists for 89 and 92, but they have not turned up. Many of the dances done during those years either show up in syllabi from other years. One of the projects on my to-do list is to go through all the ones that don't and find other places that they have been published. Once I do that I will add the info to the index.
David
> Hi David,
>
> Are pre 1997 syllabi available (online)? The index starts at 1988, but
> the pdf only begin at 1997.
>
> Ta
> Cheers, Bill
David, thank you *so much* for taking the time to create these syllabi. The
RPDLW archives are one of the most valuable calling resources I've found (along
with this list - thanks also to Chris & co.!!)
Tina
[Apologies in advance for what ended up much longer than I intended it to be. A
remark often attributed to Mark Twain though it seems to have come from Pascal
two hundred years earlier: "I apologize for writing a long letter. If I'd had
more time, I'd have written a shorter one."]
I've been delighted to read so many letters offering such a spirited defense of
mixers. I call 'em, usually one a night as the third dance-- following advice
from such respected leaders as Ted Sannella and Tony Parkes-- and though it's
less common, I've been known to do more than one even at a regular series.
--- Greg wrote:
Our ability to influence the audience needs to be tempered, however, with a
strong commitment to getting unbiased and even brutal feedback from as many
people as possible.
--- end of quote ---
No arguments here, though I admit to not seeking out brutal feedback. Honesty is
good... no need for anyone to be brutal, and I admit that I'd be suspicious of
someone whose sense of humanity was such that they would deliver unwelcome news
in a brutal fashion. But I digress...
The challenge for callers is that most of the feedback we receive comes a very
small subset of the total dance population. These are almost always the people
whom caller Ralph Sweet (writing in 1966) described as "the overactive 10%,"
whom today we might call the serious dance hobbyists, the hardcore "dance
gypsies."
I'll quote some of Ralph's analysis below. Although his book-- Let's Create Old
Tyme Square Dancing-- is not easily available, I encourage folks to look at the
excerpt that Clark Baker posted on line here:
http://www.tiac.net/~mabaker/western-style-in-trouble.html
Ralph is talking about the modern western square dance movement in the
mid-1960s, but there are similar tendencies in today's world of zesty contras.
---quoted material follows:
"A part of each club was bound to consist of some whose enthusiasm was greater
than that of the rest. These would often dance three to five nights per week.
Then they would return twice monthly to dance with their old home club, most of
whose members only danced twice a month, or at most once weekly. The three- to
five-night per week dancer became rapidly more proficient, and delighted in the
constant challenge of new, fast material he heard from other callers both in and
out of the area. Soon he became dissatisfied and impatient with what seemed to
be the slow pokey pace of his own club and caller. He was convinced that if the
rest of the membership were exposed to all the exciting, challenging material
offered at the faster clubs, their enthusiasm would increase to where his was.
This "top 10%" would therefore urge the home caller to call faster, more
challenging material, whether the average member could keep up with it or not,
or even enjoy it.
"The "overactive 10%", because of their enthusiasm and obvious dancing ability,
became in almost all cases the officers of the club. Their pressures for more
challenge were therefore in an official capacity. ..."
---end quoted material
Who are the dancers who feel comfortable coming up to a caller to complain about
a dance? It's not the new dancers, perhaps there for the first time or even with
several evenings of dancing under their feet. These newcomers haven't yet
learned that each dance is "supposed" to have one. They may even enjoy a dance
without a swing because it lets their dizzy head stop spinning for a while. The
elderly couple may enjoy a dance without aerobic -- let alone frenetic-- motion,
and they certainly won't complain if a dance is called to a stately march
instead of a hot reel. The old-timers who remember fondly dancing Sackett's
Harbor or Queen Victoria or British Sorrow will be delighted to see some of that
older material on the program, so they're not going to complain, though they
might-- by dint of seniority-- drop a few hints that it'd be nice to see a few
more chestnuts in the evening's repertoire. Similarly, folks who remember with
fondness dancing in a time and place where an evening's program included
contras, squares, mixers, international folk dances, couple dances, and more...
they're not going to complain about a mixer in the program.
It's the hard-core, the dancers whom the caller sees at different events,
whether weekly or monthly dances or at weekends and at camps. These are the
dancers who will gripe about a dance with no partner swing. These are the
dancers who know the caller by name and who feel certain that theirs is the
correct prescription for what the dance needs.
The folks who complain about mixers are, in my experience-- and here I'm making
a large generalization-- dancers who think that the dancing is about the
pleasure they get with a particular partner, rather than dancers who are
thinking about the health of the community as a whole.
Greg writes, "During the first half of the evening my priority is to empower the
regular dancers to take an active role in welcoming and partnering with
newcomers." I'm delighted to hear that stated so clearly, and I hope that
everyone on this list shares a similar agenda. Heck, there may even be some
callers here who are interested in seeing newcomers welcomed and partnered
throughout the entire evening. ;-)
Mind you, I'm not saying that I tune out the comments if/when people complain. I
listen to what they're saying and try, as Greg aptly put it, " to maintain an
open mind and an attitude of humility." That does not mean, though, that I must
agree with them or even change my philosophy.
I was calling once at a very large dance in an urban setting, hundreds of
dancers. One came up to me upset because the first dance of the evening didn't
have a partner swing. She was certain that I was calling a dance with "something
wrong" with it. Our conversation revealed that she had been dancing a "long
time," which turned out to be three years. She maintained that she had never
encountered a dance before without a partner swing, so clearly the one I called
had something wrong with it. I explained briefly why for that first dance I
wanted a dance with just neighbor swings, and I think she understood some of
what I said, but clearly the underpinnings of her dance universe had been
shaken. How sad, I thought, that this dancer had been so involved in such a
wonderful activity and yet her community dance had exposed her to such a small
piece of the extensive country dance repertoire.
We all know about the tyranny of the majority. In a series with a large number
of hardcore dancers, it is the caller more than any other single individual who
is looking out for the new dancers. The caller's job is made easier, of course,
by a committee that shares these ideas, and by having allies among at least some
of the experienced dancers on the floor. Although it may mean that the
overactive 10% in charge of booking callers may not bring them back, ultimately,
callers must follow their own sense of what is best for the dance, programming
with the longterm health of the community in mind.
David Millstone
Lebanon, NH
Wow, I'm stunned by the negative attitude toward mixers expressed
below. Certainly I know there are folks who aren't keen on mixers,
but seriously - "the caller assumes that most of the regulars do not
enjoy dancing with newcomers?" I call mixers fairly frequently
because as a dancer I enjoy doing them, just as Beth states. I tend
to do them as a third dance, a little break from the contra line
format, a chance for everyone in the hall to meet everyone - how many
times have you come to the end of the night and noticed a bunch of
people you just never happened to be in the same line with, and you
didn't even know they were there (and I don't just mean newcomers
either, I've seen good friends I somehow missed)? Sometimes if there
are a lot of newcomers that have been concentrating hard on the first
two dances, an easy short mixer will relax them and give them
confidence. There are quite a few fun mixers out there - Ted
Sanella's Love and Kisses is a nice one, for example. I do always say
as soon as the previous dance ends, "Take partners for a mixer" and
tell people not to get too attached to their partner, because they
won't have them for very long - after all, I don't want everyone
lining up for a contra if it's a mixer. But if anyone thinks I'm
doing it as an implied message that they aren't partnering with
newcomers enough - then I would suggest that the guilty parties are
projecting their own guilt onto my motives. If the shoe fits....
Martha
On Jul 19, 2010, at 9:00 AM, callers-request(a)sharedweight.net wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: Integrating Newcomers (Was "Calling debut")
> (beth(a)hands4.com)
> 2. Lack of Contra in the Adirondacks (bobfab(a)aol.com)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 04:21:55 -0700
> From: "beth(a)hands4.com" <beth(a)hands4.com>
> To: Caller's discussion list <callers(a)sharedweight.net>
> Subject: Re: [Callers] Integrating Newcomers (Was "Calling debut")
> Message-ID:
>
> <00B69DEF44D08841A28AEE08D9E236C7038156D9BC(a)P3PW5EX1MB10.EX1.SECURESER
> VER.NET>
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>
> Wow.
>
> I call mixers because it is the one and only time in an evening
> when the whole group is gathered together. Instead of "my little
> clique" it is "all of us are in this together" as a dancer and as a
> caller I enjoy that experience.
>
> I call mixers because I find a whole evening of contra, contra,
> contra, contra, contra... boring (as a dancer.) Especially if every
> dance has a similar piece count, pacing, and two swings (or at
> least a partner swing.)
>
> There are probably other reasons as well, but these are my primary
> thoughts. Any idea of needing to twist the arm of people to welcome
> newcomers has not entered into it.
>
> The modern urban contra dance scene is welcoming to people who
> would fit in anyway. That's not necessarily a bad thing. It is the
> nature of hobby activities. Since muc dancers go to a dance
> primarily to dance "what they want to dance the way they want to
> dance it" then anything outside of their hobby mind-set is anathema.
>
> Beth
>
>> -----Original Message-----
> <snip>
>>
>> First, I find that mixers are too often a heavy-handed way to
>> force the
>> regular dancers to integrate newcomers. This can set a negative
>> tone that is
>> transferred to the newcomers themselves, creating an attitude that
>> newcomers should be "tolerated." The "grumbling" Jeff mentions
>> above is
>> not easy to miss. It seems obvious that many newcomers will be
>> aware of
>> this attitude and it will interfere with their motivation, and
>> possibly their
>> inclination, to integrate into the dance community.
>>
>> Second, I feel that mixers can actually discourage many regulars from
>> partnering with newcomers. This happens when mixers are not
>> announced
>> in advance. Consider the situation when a more experienced dancer
>> takes
>> the initiative to approach a newcomer and partner with them only
>> to learn
>> that the dance will be a mixer. This can be discouraging to those
>> who put out
>> the effort to partner with a newcomer. If you want to call a
>> mixer please
>> announce it clearly and well in advance of the partnering process.
>>
>> Third, the decision to call a mixer can send several implied
>> messages to the
>> regular dancers that have a negative influence. These include:
>>
>> - The caller assumes that most of the regulars are not
>> partnering with
>> newcomers.
>> - The caller assumes that most of the regulars do not enjoy
>> dancing with
>> newcomers.
>> - The caller does not have confidence in the regulars to
>> welcome and to
>> partner with new dancers on their own.
>
>
> End of Callers Digest, Vol 71, Issue 15
> ***************************************
HI all,
I tried to look for a contradance in the Adirondacks near Old Forge on 4th lake, and couldn't find any regular or event dances anywhere.
Yes, I was vacationing and am addicted enough to look and plan for dance opportunities.
That said, Does anyone know of a reguiar contra (or event) that is in that (or any) region of the Adirondacks?
And, if there isn't, I would appreciate advice about attempting to start one - maybe as a single event next year.
We took an "old fashioned train ride" complete with staged robbery, and it was corny fun but the kids loved it.
I mentioned it because next to the depot is the old "Fulton Chain Town Hall - Circa 1890" that looks like a great
old grange sort of dance hall. I have started inquires about possibly renting it. Have no idea about the structural integrity, tho',
and didn't see much in the way of other halls big enough to do what I hope/imagine a big barn dance would be.
My thought was that people getting off the train would be more likely to join in the dance, and it might even
draw a few folks to try some family/community activity while on vacation.
So there would be probably very little in the way of experienced dancers (unless it is advertised in say, Syracuse?
or maybe get a big name band to come? ) but barn dances are fun in their own way, maybe a big circle, a square or two,
and a contra or two - just an hour and a half gig. If there is an acceptance, then maybe a series could start?
Any thoughts? Am I letting my missing one week of dancing while on vacation get the better of my rational mind?
I think CDSS does grants to start or support this sort of activity, so maybe funding is less of an issue than I fear?
Bob
Thank you Beth for your comments. From your response I gather that
you have not encountered the kind of resistance Jeff referred to when
he mentioned the "grumbling" among some dancers when either a mixer
or a partner-swing-free contra is called?
I would be interested in knowing:
- Do you announce your mixers in advance?
- If so, when? At the end of the current dance? Or before the
walk-through of the current dance?
I would also be interested in the experience of other callers with
mixers and/or partner-swing-free contras. Do dancers embrace these
dance slots, or do you sense any resistance? Do you announce them in advance?
Beth also wrote:
>The modern urban contra dance scene is welcoming to people who would
>fit in anyway. That's not necessarily a bad thing. It is the nature
>of hobby activities. Since muc dancers go to a dance primarily to
>dance "what they want to dance the way they want to dance it" then
>anything outside of their hobby mind-set is anathema.
The "modern urban contra dance scene" seems to vary greatly from
venue to venue and from night to night depending--to a great
extent--upon the caller, the band, and the organizers. Framing
contras as a "hobby" activity is certainly a legitimate view, but
there are many other ways to frame the phenomenon. For many people
it is a hobby. But contras are also, by nature, open public social
events where newcomers are encouraged to attend without prior training.
Part of the appeal of contras, for at least some of us, is that they
allow for wide participation and are something more than merely a
gathering of dance enthusiasts. Making dances with live music
accessible to almost everyone is at the heart of what makes contras
somewhat unique in the realm of social dance.
But that might be another thread entirely.
- Greg McKenzie
