Contra Callers

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4369 discussions

by Jerome Grisanti

Hello All, I'm trying to start a contra dance series 90 miles from the nearest regular contra dances. When someone asks me what contra dance looks I know that verbal descriptions can only go so far, and even snapshots don't really tell the story. One person has trusted me enough to make the 90-mile drive, but I know most folks aren't willing to do that. What I'd really like is to point them to a contra video that is simple and clean, showing one line from a caller's perspective. A contra with good lighting, good music and simple calling. And I'd love for that video to be freely available on the Internet. I've found a few contra videos on YouTube, but most are shot from the floor and so it's very hard to get a feel for the set. The few I've seen shot from a balcony have a very jerky, hand-held feel. I know I may be asking for something that does not exist, in which case perhaps a contest could be held for a video that "captures" contra for a person who has never seen or danced contra. Any suggestions? -- Jerome Grisanti 660-528-0858 660-528-0714 http://www.jeromegrisanti.com

18 years, 4 months

Planning for Medleys

by Lisa Sieverts

Hi gang, So we're planning for a medley and I had a concern that perhaps people were aiming too high. So I wrote: > As you're thinking about dances for a medley, keep in mind that > there will be no walk-through so you have to plan for the > excellent words you will use (taking up no more than 8 beats of > music) for the more complex calls. We shouldn't be late with a > single call during a medley, since (IMHO) that takes all the fun > out of dancing the medley. In response, I heard back that I'd only succeeded in frightening callers out of their wits (an exaggeration, but you get the point). My response: > there's an easy answer: call dances that you know inside out, > forwards and backwards. The medley is not a time to show off fancy > dances. All we need are good dances that flow. > > You can also practice by trying out your selected dances over the > next couple of months. If appropriate for your dancers, try calling > it no walk-through. If you can't do that, then try to use all the > words you'd need during the first time or two through the dance. > > I'm not saying it's impossible to call hard dances, but iit takes a > lot of preparation to be able to call dances with non-standard > moves and we do the dancers a huge disservice if we screw up. > > So pick dances that you love and that you feel comfortable about > calling, and then practice practice practice. Am I being too judgmental? BTW, it's not NEFFA that we're planning for, so we can't assume that every dancer knows every possible move. And please share any other tips you have for planning medleys. Thanks, Lisa

18 years, 4 months

The slow flow results...

by Nancy Turner

Hi All, I wanted to extend my thanks to those who made suggestions on easy dances that align well with a slow flow. I've made a note of your advice and I'm planning on using it in the future! As I learned more about the expected crowd for the dance, I rethought the program and selected very simple dances. We had 4 year olds to 40+ year olds on the dance floor with the ratio of children to parents being skewed towards the younger set. At one point, two young girls under five formed an arch for all to duck through! What a sight and I really hope none of the adults strained their backs! Thanks for your help, Nancy Turner Waitsfield

18 years, 4 months

RPLDW - AWESOME

by mavis mcgaugh

To those of you who wrote so convincingly about the fun you had a RPLDW in New Hampshire. THANKS My husband and I just got back from a visit with my family in Mass. and an absolutely terrific weekend in Durham, N.H. Friendly, welcoming dancers, a truly wonderful mix of dances and 3 days of the most joyful, toe tapping music one could want to listen to. We loved every minute. It was fun to put faces to several of the names I have seen on the emails. Happy dancing! Mavis L McGaugh 510-814-8118 (answering machine-leave message) ____________________________________________________________________________________ Don't pick lemons. See all the new 2007 cars at Yahoo! Autos. http://autos.yahoo.com/new_cars.html

18 years, 4 months

Re: [Callers] Thanks for New Years Ideas

by Jerome Grisanti

Karen, "Lucky Five" is Bob's slight variation on "Lucky Seven:" Lucky Five Bob Dalsemer Circle Mixer -- Easy A1: Circle Left, circle right A2: Forward and back, face partner and do-si-do B1: Grand right & left, counting partner as one. Swing the fifth. B2: Promenade the one you swung. Because you pass four people, this sets you up nicely for a square with a grand R&L later in the evening. You can of course count aloud "one, two, three, four, five" but Bob suggested "A, E, I, O, U" with "You!" being the one you swing. This can also be used as an easy square break, easy since there's no corner allemande to set up the grand R&L. In a square I would change the B2 to eight-count promenade and swing again at home. Or grand R&L all the way home (16) & swing (16). Jerome Message: 4 > Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 10:47:16 -0800 (PST) > From: Karen Fontana <karen_fontana(a)yahoo.com> > Subject: Re: [Callers] Thanks for New Years Ideas > To: Caller's discussion list <callers(a)sharedweight.net> > Message-ID: <197133.60827.qm(a)web30311.mail.mud.yahoo.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 > > Hi Jerome, > > Thanks for sharing, sounds interesting. I looked online for <<Bob > Dalsemer's "Lucky Five" mixer>> and wasn't able to find it... > > Would you mind to share it? > > Thanks, > > Karen Fontana > > > -- > Jerome Grisanti > 660-528-0858 > 660-528-0714 > http://www.jeromegrisanti.com

18 years, 4 months

Thanks for New Years Ideas

by Jerome Grisanti

I wanted to say "thank you" to the many folks who chimed in with great ideas about orchestrating the midnight "moment" at a New Years Eve dance. I ended up using several, plus one. Firstly, I took the approach that there would be a New Years celebration at the top of each hour, at least in some time zone, so we might as well join in here too. For midnight local time, we sang "Auld Lang Syne," danced a mixer (Bob Dalsemer's "Lucky Five"), got back to our partners and shifted to a waltz. For one of the other times we did a grand march, shifted to a circle with some ins and outs to get in the shouts, then went into a spiral dance. This seemed new to a lot of the crowd, so it went really well. For one of the other "midnights" we waltzed. -- Jerome Grisanti 660-528-0858 660-528-0714 http://www.jeromegrisanti.com

18 years, 4 months

dance ending

by Tom Hinds

I like to try to feel out the crowd when deciding when to end a dance. It's been suggested by many callers that the excitement of dancing a contra is almost like a bell shaped curve. The excitement goes up and then comes back down. The trick is to end just before the excitement starts to drop off. Tom callers-request(a)sharedweight.net wrote: > Send Callers mailing list submissions to > callers(a)sharedweight.net > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > callers-request(a)sharedweight.net > > You can reach the person managing the list at > callers-owner(a)sharedweight.net > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Callers digest..." > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Card boxes and Dance ending (David Giusti) > 2. Re: Card boxes and Dance ending (Peter Amidon) > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 13:30:04 -0500 > From: David Giusti <David.Giusti(a)oberlin.edu> > Subject: [Callers] Card boxes and Dance ending > To: callers(a)sharedweight.net > Message-ID: <f951c77935ce.35cef951c779(a)oberlin.edu> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > Hello, > So most callers have dance cards, and all dances have to be ended at > some point. I have my ways of doing it, of course, and I've asked a lot > of callers about theirs, but haven't found anything I'm quite happy with. > > Basically, how do you organize your box of dance cards and why do you > like it that way? > > And, > How do you figure out when to end a dance? Of course finish with all > couples in, but how do you decide when it's about time to end it? > Some callers simply set a timer, or count a number of times through, or > end when couples have come back to where they started. What do you do? > Does anyone try to gauge the energy of the dancers on the floor and end > when it seems right? > > Thank you very much, > David Giusti > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 14:25:05 -0500 > From: Peter Amidon <peter(a)amidonmusic.com> > Subject: Re: [Callers] Card boxes and Dance ending > To: "Caller's discussion list" <callers(a)sharedweight.net> > Message-ID: <p06230950c1d02f6221db(a)[192.168.1.100]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" > > David Giusti wrote: > > >Hello, > >So most callers have dance cards, and all dances have to be ended at > >some point. I have my ways of doing it, of course, and I've asked a lot > >of callers about theirs, but haven't found anything I'm quite happy with. > > > >Basically, how do you organize your box of dance cards and why do you > >like it that way? > > Hi David > > I am very happy with my database way of organizing dances. I do not > have dance cards. I do have a comfortable working knowledge of > using databases; I use them in all of my work as a freelance musician. > I use Panorama, but I would recommend anyone starting out to use > Filemaker Pro. > > The short story is that I keep all of the dances on a database. The > actual dance is recorded in eight 8-beat fields: > > A1a > A1b > A2a > A2b > B1a > B1b > B2a > B2b > > Other fields, other than the obvious, include the date that I entered > the dance, > whether it is in my current repertoire, what the difficulty level is, whether > I've ever called it. Of course there are a lot of other fields you could make: > e.g. swings: how many and with whom, etc. > > I can easily select out dances that I want to memorize to build my repertoire; > I export the dance instructions and a separate page that has just the > titles and > choreographers names. I drill and practice the dances until I can remember the > whole dance just from the title. > > To prepare for an evening contra dance I might print out a big list > of dances from > which to choose from which to make the dance list for that night. > > Once I have chosen and sequenced dances for that evening, I number > the dances I've chosen > in the database from, say, 1 - 11, put them in order, and export the > dances, the > choreographer's name, and instructions for the band (what kind of > tune - that is another > field I have in the database), and put it all on one sheet that I > print out and give to > the musicians ahead of time so they can more easily plan the evening. > I print, for > my own use, the instructions to all the dances I am calling that > night. They fit > on two sides of one sheet; I usually only use this if I am calling new dances > that are not yet ingrained in memory. > > I also print out a list of a bunch of alternate dances I might call in case > I need to vary from the planned program. These dances are already memorized, > so I do not need to print out the dance instructions to these. > > For a festival or dance weekend where I am calling a lot, I print out a couple > of booklets of my current dances. One page has all of the titles and > authors listed, > and I sort the dances into three categories of difficulty. The other > pages have > all of the dances' along with the dance instructions. Again, this is an easy > import from the database; I just choose which dances and fields to export and > then format the resultant text in MS Word. > > Best, > > Peter > -- > Peter Amidon > peter(a)amidonmusic.com > 20 Willow Street > Brattleboro, VT 05301 > 802-257-1006 > cell: 917-922-5462 > http://www.amidonmusic.com > http://www.dancingmasters.com > > I have never been lost, but I will admit to > being confused for several weeks. > > -Daniel Boone > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Callers mailing list > Callers(a)sharedweight.net > http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers > > End of Callers Digest, Vol 29, Issue 1 > **************************************

18 years, 4 months

Card boxes and Dance ending

by David Giusti

Hello, So most callers have dance cards, and all dances have to be ended at some point. I have my ways of doing it, of course, and I've asked a lot of callers about theirs, but haven't found anything I'm quite happy with. Basically, how do you organize your box of dance cards and why do you like it that way? And, How do you figure out when to end a dance? Of course finish with all couples in, but how do you decide when it's about time to end it? Some callers simply set a timer, or count a number of times through, or end when couples have come back to where they started. What do you do? Does anyone try to gauge the energy of the dancers on the floor and end when it seems right? Thank you very much, David Giusti

18 years, 4 months

Re: [Callers] NYE dances and ideas for the stroke of midnight....

by The Witful Turnip

> Message: 4 > Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 15:47:18 -0500 > From: "J L Korr" <jeremykorr(a)hotmail.com> > Subject: [Callers] New Year's Eve > To: callers(a)sharedweight.net > Message-ID: <BAY129-F40FFA945932B34BBC9BEABC7CF0(a)phx.gbl> > Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed > <snip> > The callers and band coordinated in advance to pull this off. To build up > the energy approaching midnight, we began a four-dance contra medley soon > after 11:40, alternating the callers with each dance. The band played six > times through each of the first three dances. We then ran the final dance in > the medley as long as we needed to fill up the remaining time until 11:58... <snip> >...promenading up to the band, intros, count down, cheering, Auld Lang Syne, waltzing.... I like the "concentration of people up at the stage" idea Jeremy. Being surrounded by friends at that moment is a great thing. Thanks for mentioning it ! Bev > ------------------------------ > > Message: 5 > Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 20:28:28 -0800 (PST) > From: Dan Pearl <daniel_pearl(a)yahoo.com> > Subject: Re: [Callers] NYE dances and ideas for the stroke of > midnight.... > To: callers(a)sharedweight.net > Message-ID: <278984.14032.qm(a)web60420.mail.yahoo.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 > > Well that brings me back... > > I was hired for a NYE dance at the Swingin Tern dance in Chatham NJ. > They were paying me well, so I felt obligated to do something a little, > um.., special. Before the big countdown, I stepped into the stage wing > and ended the dance in progress. I donned an Old Man outfit and mask, > and announced myself onto the stage. I made a few parting remarks, and > then came the big countdown. At 5 seconds to midnight, I whipped off > the old man outfit and mask, and at midnight I had transformed myself > into Baby New Year, complete with big diaper and sash proclaiming the > New Year. (This took practice.) We then launched into a waltz and > then broke for a dessert buffet. <laughing> Oh Dan ! Thanks for sharing this. That image of you is just *hilarious* ! And although these organizers are paying me exceptionally well, I just don't think that I can bring myself to do the diaper thing. Getting myself into a mermaid costume with a scallop shell bra, tight green stretchy long skirt and a long black wig for a Halloween dance once, was about as far as I'm willing to go on the "minimal clothing in public" scale ! <only exceptions being the Ashokan sauna and the Long Pond dock at Pinewoods> > Don't worry too much about the ritual. Work with the producers and just > have a fun, safe, time. Amen to that ! Bev ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lisa Greenleaf" <laleaf(a)verizon.net> To: "Caller's discussion list" <callers(a)sharedweight.net> Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2006 12:24 PM Subject: Re: [Callers] NYE dances and ideas for the stroke of midnight.... > On Dec 21, 2006, at 12:01 PM, The Witful Turnip wrote: <Lisa's comment below hasn't hit the digest yet, which is what I receive, but since I also got it in email....> <getting people back to their original partners in Lucky Seven> > It's a bit goofy, but it works. When you get to the R&L Grand in the > A2, you just > say, "Keep going until you get your original partner, then swing!" > The inner circle gets there early and some folks just laugh and cut > across the room. Hmmm... so the version of Lucky Seven that I've got written down is different than yours. The one I have has the Grand R&L in the B1 going into a Promenade in the B2. In fact, mine doesn't have a partner swing in it at all. It has a partner dosido in the second phrase of the A2. Can you please post the version you have Lisa ? > During the mixer, people are lighthearted anyway, talking and saying > Happy New > Year to one another, so it's not about having a peak dance experience; > it's about dancing together and being a community. I absolutely agree with that, which is why I like the mixer idea. Thanks, Bev ***************************************** The Witful Turnip wturnip(a)sympatico.ca "I'm 40-fucking-5, and I've got nothing to hide !" - Samantha Jones (Sex in the City) *****************************************

18 years, 5 months

NYE dances and ideas for the stroke of midnight....

by The Witful Turnip

Hi all, For the last 4-5 years I've called at contra dances on New Years Eve, and this year is no exception. My typical MO is to ask the organizer how they/their community would like to handle the stroke of midnight and what's been done in the past. I've done a couple of different things over the years, none of which really seemed great for everyone, for one reason or another. At a few dances, they wanted to stop right before and sing Auld Lang Syne. So, I had them contra dancing right up until about a minute to go and we made a big circle and sang. But then everyone wandered about to hug and smooch and it seemed to take a while to get everyone back to dancing. Not sure the dancer wanted to bother but the organizers wanted to keep dancing ! I've also been at dances where they move to a waltz right before midnight. But if you don't have a waltz partner (as I often do not) that's awkward and leaves people out, in my ever so humble opinion. I've been to dances where they do a waltz mixer instead, and at a minimum, that works better for the partner-less dancers like myself, and I've appreciated that. But for the people who do have a waltz partner, they then want a second waltz where they can *really* dance with the person, because they don't see that as enough. Personally, I'd like to contra dance right through the stroke of midnight with no preamble stop, but that's just me. So, I'm wondering about this idea... Three Couple Mixer is granted, a silly family dance style, but also very fun (again in my ever so humble opinion) mixer. You do need a partner, but it's never tied to the 3 couples, and the couples don't have to be mixed gender. In fact, it's *way* more fun if it's more couples. Here's the dance: a1. Circle Left Circle Right a2. Hands across R hand star (with someone other than your partner who's beside you) Hands across L hand star b1. Raise hands*, starting with the lowest hands, gents/leads pull new partner thru and swing b2. Promenade with new partner to find new couples * Everyone would shout Happy New Year when they raise their hands ! It's so simple that I could teach it a couple of minutes before midnight and then get into the dance myself, which would be fun for me. I'd ask the band to play their hottest tunes. It's a mixer so it "should" get everyone in and dancing thru the stroke of midnight. And that would leave the waltz for the folks who have specific partners and others, but not have it right at midnight, the "special meaning moment"..... I got this idea from some local callers who run a NYE dance in a relatively small and newbie dance community. I really like the idea, but I wonder if a more/very experienced dance community might find it so hokey that they would absolutely abhor it. Often, I think that the way something is raised sets the tone for how it's received. I'd be very enthusiastic. But I'm concerned that while the organizer might like the idea and may want to try something different, when it came to the time, the dancers would hate it. You folks are the best test audience I know. What do you think of this idea ? What idea have you tried at NYE dances ? What have you found to work ? Thanks in advance ! And all my best wishes to everyone for the holiday season. Be safe and healthy. Bev ***************************************** The Witful Turnip wturnip(a)sympatico.ca "I'm 40-fucking-5, and I've got nothing to hide !" - Samantha Jones (Sex in the City) *****************************************

18 years, 5 months

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