>From The Cardinal Collection:
Three Ceremonies - Adriane Moser
Becket
A1: Ladies Chain, mad robin (around N)
A2: Hey (ladies pass rt)
B1: Ladies pass rt sh, to swing ptr
B2: F&B, Circle L 1x, slide left to new Ns
On 11/3/08 10:56 AM, "Lisa Greenleaf" <laleaf(a)verizon.net> wrote:
> I'm looking for the choreography for a contra called Three
> Ceremonies. Does anyone have it?
Re: Dance space and that "bottom" couple drifting down the hall:
I've seen gaps in the line of 10 or 12 feet.... that makes it hard to do a forward and back at all, much less with "W" shaped arms. It's real hard to give weight and feel any connection with anything but "W" shaped arms :)
Dances with moves outside the set (such as next neighbor do-si-do) are brutal to execute in 8 steps, when the next neighbor is 10 feet away.
Some dancers I know are aware of the set and do compress it upwards when the couples get to far apart.
Expanding sets can even occur on level floors, just due to the random motion of the dance, You can often see a set line up close enough for the walk through but 2 times into the dance, the minor sets are way to far apart.
As a caller set management becomes an issue... in a small hall the difference between 2 or 3 lines is a big factor. Trying to talk the dancers into forming two lines when they almost always want 3 can cause a "mutiny" real fast :) :) so..... tricks, ploys, and careful observation are needed.
I've found I can only mold the dancers into a set formation where the hall limits the "spreading out" about 4 or 5 times a evening. The rest of the time I have to save my "connected" dances for times when they just happen to be in the right formation and use "stay in the minor sets" dances for the times when they are spread out.
Perhaps the best plan would be to find those dancers that understand how great contra dancing is when the dancers can feel each other and get them to nudge the sets into the correct spacing?
I remember dancing in the 1980's in halls in California where the spacing was so tight you had to turn sideways to do a right and left thru. Everyone was on time because you had to be, because the space you just vacated was immediately occupied by some one else. :) Beginners picked up on the dance real fast because the was no place to wander off to, and we all had a blast :)
Keep the contra fires burning... :)
Richie Katz
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That reminds me of an issue I've noticed when dancing (but forget about when I'm calling). In a short contra line, occasionally some people will wait out at the bottom of the HALL, rather than at the bottom of the SET, putting a very large empty space between them and the other dancers. The problem is compounded when it is time to rejoin the dance, and the end couple just stands there which encourages the next couple in the set to come join them at the bottom of the hall, unaware of the void being created within the set.
Mark Widmer (central NJ)
"Mortland, Jo" <j-mortland(a)neiu.edu> wrote on Mon, 3 Nov 2008 10:03:18 -0600:
Hello, all,
Are any of you teaching the concept of individual dance space? With so
many newcomers at some dances, it would be a useful thing to mention.
Do you have any good metaphors you use? Any visual imagery?
Thanks.
Jo Mortland
Chicago
One that I heard recently was a caller telling dancers to notice where
their feet were, and then to make sure that their feet were under them
and not someone else. Also, pointing out that an arm sticking out
during a swing is a bludgeon -- much safer if you tuck arm in.
J
At 11:03 AM 11/3/2008, you wrote:
Hello, all,
Are any of you teaching the concept of individual dance space? With
so
many newcomers at some dances, it would be a useful thing to
mention.
Do you have any good metaphors you use? Any visual imagery?
Thanks.
Jo Mortland
Chicago
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Hi all,
I've been lurking for quite a while (and much enjoying all the suggestions
and opinions), but now I need your help.
I'm scheduled to call a "hoedown" next week for a retirement community, and
could use some help selecting (or modifying) appropriate dances. I'm
bringing a live band, so we'll probably intersperse liberally with waltzes
and other breaks, but I still hope to get them moving in some fun fashion.
I know many folks in the community (I teach tai chi and qigong there twice a
week), and am pretty sure that the wheelchair-or-walker set won't be dancing
(heck, I don't know if anyone will be dancing!), but I'm hoping some of the
more fit folks in their sixties and seventies can be convinced onto the
floor. That said, I'm still pretty sure I need to limit the amount of
swinging/twirling/hopping etc. to avoid possible falls or other disasters.
Oh, and we'll probably be dancing on carpet. Fun, huh?
Anyhow, any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Cis Hinkle
I think the formation you're describing is similar to the Weston Mountain Zia and other "Zia" formation dances. Bob Isaacs has a lengthy description of this formation that appeared either on this list or the trad-dance-callers list within the last year.
David Millstone
I'm toying with a new formation, a "plus".
Imagine a regular contra line, with a second going cross-ways, intersecting
about half way down.
The progression would be toward or away from the center intersection, then
back out.
Different progressions in the center determine which arm of the plus the
"back out" goes to.
It seems a double progression works best, or there will be a square (4
couples) in the center -
which might be another variation - just too deep for me at the moment. The
progression
through the intersection could be a Star Right, while the couples still in
the arms do an
allemande with Neigbor once and a half.
Any thoughts? Is this an original formation? Can you provide names of other
dances like this?
Bob Fabinski
Rochester NY
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Hullo List,
Just ran across a Contra dance choreography entry on ye olde Wikipedia.
That handy, mildly suspect, group contribution or back-room handled
centre for information/ego/slander (pick one).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra_dance_choreography
It looks fundamentally correct to my less experienced eye and I wonder
if anyone on here has already vetted it or at least perused it for
validity, which I'd like before recommending it to folks.
This is part of a root section on Contra dance which seemingly has more
references, though there still seems to be a call for citations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra_dance
Thanks, John
J.D. Erskine
Victoria, BC
As a new caller, I¹m looking for advise and/or suggestions for events with a
very small number of dancers, 3-6 couples. At a dance I called in August
(granted a slow month) we had at most five couples and that was if I and a
couple of people who came to play music danced. I threw away my carefully
planned program and wound up doing a number of triplets (thank you David
Smukler) and a four-on-four that I modified so that it stayed together as a
set and resulted in a change of partners each time through. It was a little
clunky but it mostly worked and gave us some variety.
I am of course trying to avoid the scenario of people spending half the
dance as neutrals when there only four couples in a set, and I¹m not really
ready to take on learning some squares in the next few days which would be
the obvious choice. I am hopeful that there will be more people this time,
but in case I¹m in the same situation again, I¹m studying more triplets, a
couple of dbl-progression dances for 4+ couple sets (so that no one waits
out at the end for long) and looking for other ideas.
Levi Jackson Rag is a possibility, but I¹d still like to have some other
options in my pocket. It did occur to me to suggest an extra couples dance
or two just to break things up if we¹re doing lots of short dances with 3-5
couples.
Thanks,
Will Loving
