Contra Callers

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39 participants
4354 discussions

Re: [Callers] [Organizers] contra dance gypsy

by Mac Mckeever

Sorry - I did not mean to hijack this thread with discussion of gypsies - just found it curious that the term 'dance gypsy' was used in the subject line. I have not heard of anyone addressing that usage. Please return to the original discussion Mac On Monday, October 7, 2019, 02:46:21 PM CDT, Masha Goodman Crawford <mashagoodman(a)yahoo.com> wrote: Becky - Excellent answer. The first time I heard the term "gypsy" for the dance move, I happened to be living among Roma in Europe and was back in the states on a short visit.The part that seemed particularly offensive to me was that the move was taught with the emphasis on gazing flirtatiously into the other dancer's eyes - something that would have been absolutely taboo among the people I had been travelling with. I suppose the name came from someone's mental image of a Flamenco dancer circling, and some idea that Gypsy = Flamenco? who knows. I discovered, much to my dismay, that many of my well-educated American friends thought "Gypsies" were just a fictional group or general term for folks who travel, hence the "dance gypsy" slang. They are a proud and very real ethnic group with a centuries-old language, customs, and a long history of being marginalized and persecuted.In your mind, take any other group with a similar history, and substitute it: Would you teach dancers to do a "Xxx", and tell them that it means to behave a certain way with strangers? (Becky gave one good example, I can think of others as well.)Can we just DROP the term "gypsy" altogether, please?- Masha(dancing and calling since 1978) _______________________________________________ List Name: Callers mailing list List Address: Callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net Archives: https://www.mail-archive.com/callers@lists.sharedweight.net/

5 years, 6 months

Re: [Callers] What can you do.....?

by Bill Baritompa

Hi Becky, John and all, I think it is slightly more complex. Have a look at the young dancer here https://youtu.be/sFVToeQdCPY?t=385 She does not look awkward and the flow is good. Although the dancers are moving to the person on their right's spot, they are not turning to the right since they balance forwards and back first. The young dancer steps forward with her right foot as she starts the anti clockwise spin. A lot has to do with convention and familiarity. Consider a right and left thru. Which is more natural following by Circle Left or Circle Right? Cheers, Bill On 1/10/2019 9:18 a.m., Becky Liddle via Callers wrote: > because you’re _/already turning to your right/ _to take that person’s place https://youtu.be/sFVToeQdCPY?t=379

5 years, 6 months

What can you do.....?

by tom hinds

Alan, You raise an interesting question. After I’ve had time to sleep on it, I’ve come up with some other issues to raise and.discuss. I’m curious if you have a beginning workshop before the dance. In my opinion the skills needed for a new dancer to not only survive their first dance but to actually enjoy it are many And that means having a beginning session that approximates as close as possible the dance itself. In your email you mention larks and ravens. If you do have a beginning workshop, are the newbies given the opportunity to practice/react to their new titles? Not having that opportunity to practice reacting to their new titles may cause a bit of confusion on the dance floor. Tom

5 years, 6 months

Re: [Callers] What can you do.....?

by K Panton

I think that whole "momentum" topic is very useful and, in my experience, aside from the occasional reference in a walk-through it is typically left for the dancer to connect the dots on their own. It goes hand in hand with awareness of transitions (i.e. the connecting tissue, that we don't often teach, between the figures, that we do teach), I think. (I sometimes think - not really - I'm the only one who can enjoy a lovely transition as much as a lovely figure) Not sure how one can incorporate yet another teaching point into a beginner session but I've often thought that a regular "tips" session of, perhaps, 10 minutes during the break - for those interested - would be a good time for such things in a community's dance schedule. I'd be curious to hear what other communities do by way of well-received teachable moments (apart from quick, targetted style points from the caller during the walk-through). Ken Panton On Sun., Sep. 29, 2019, 18:02 , <callers-request(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote: > Send Callers mailing list submissions to > callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > > http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/callers-sharedweight.net > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > callers-request(a)lists.sharedweight.net > > You can reach the person managing the list at > callers-owner(a)lists.sharedweight.net > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Callers digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. What can you do.....? (tom hinds) > 2. Re: What can you do.....? (Winston, Alan P.) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2019 08:44:38 -0400 > From: tom hinds <tomthecaller(a)yahoo.com> > To: callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net > Subject: [Callers] What can you do.....? > Message-ID: <8757E3F3-E880-4101-9CF8-5A05A244699B(a)yahoo.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 > > Alan, > > You raise an interesting question. After I?ve had time to sleep on it, > I?ve come up with some other issues to raise and.discuss. > > I?m curious if you have a beginning workshop before the dance. > > In my opinion the skills needed for a new dancer to not only survive their > first dance but to actually enjoy it are many And that means having a > beginning session that approximates as close as possible the dance itself. > > In your email you mention larks and ravens. If you do have a beginning > workshop, are the newbies given the opportunity to practice/react to their > new titles? Not having that opportunity to practice reacting to their new > titles may cause a bit of confusion on the dance floor. > > Tom > > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2019 19:37:06 +0000 > From: "Winston, Alan P." <winston(a)slac.stanford.edu> > To: "callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net" <callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>, > tom hinds <tomthecaller(a)yahoo.com> > Subject: Re: [Callers] What can you do.....? > Message-ID: > < > DM5PR07MB403868A0F8945FE5D7B411F7F2830(a)DM5PR07MB4038.namprd07.prod.outlook.com > > > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" > > Tom -- > > It's possible, if not likely, that what I'm calling "seems to have no > sense of flow" has different causes for different people at different > times. I've definitely seen it happening at gents/ladies dances as well as > at larks/robins dances as well as at English dances. When I lead a > beginner session at a larks/robins dance I introduce role names when > teaching the swing, emphasize that larks open on the left, ravens/robins on > the right, and do a circle mixer that's just into the center and back, > swing the next etc, repeating the larks left robins right thing. So they > get to hear the role name a lot. > > Of course new comers often take quite a while to get sorted regardless. > Last Sunday I called a single contra dance at a party - the party honored a > queer activist who also liked contra dancing, so the honoree wanted there > to be a dance, although hardly anybody at the party had done it before. > Did a Haste-to-the-Wedding variant which only had a partner swing, felt no > need to use any role names at all (beyond partner and neighbor) and every > foursome one couple was in spent about 6 of the 8 beats available to do a > right hand star getting the star organized. I couldn't see what was going > on, but they'd pass through and circle on time, and then their foursome > would be huddled like the Peanuts kids around the sad little tree in the > Christmas special and then a star would start moving. > > (This isn't an example of a "no sense of flow" problem, and I didn't see > any of that at that event.) > > What I'm talking about here is that there's choreography that seems fairly > inevitable - if you're going to circle left into a half-poussette isn't the > probable direction of the half-poussette pretty obvious, or if you did a > clockwise half poussette into a mad robin why should you even have to use a > role name to say who goes through the middle first? Getting it wrong > requires fighting your momentum - and some people will do that. [Although > if they're generally tentative, or late, or executing one call and stopping > and then executing the next call, then they don't have appropriate momentum > anyway.] > > -- Alan > > > ________________________________ > From: Callers <callers-bounces(a)lists.sharedweight.net> on behalf of tom > hinds via Callers <callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> > Sent: Sunday, September 29, 2019 5:44 AM > To: callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net <callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> > Subject: [Callers] What can you do.....? > > Alan, > > You raise an interesting question. After I?ve had time to sleep on it, > I?ve come up with some other issues to raise and.discuss. > > I?m curious if you have a beginning workshop before the dance. > > In my opinion the skills needed for a new dancer to not only survive their > first dance but to actually enjoy it are many And that means having a > beginning session that approximates as close as possible the dance itself. > > In your email you mention larks and ravens. If you do have a beginning > workshop, are the newbies given the opportunity to practice/react to their > new titles? Not having that opportunity to practice reacting to their new > titles may cause a bit of confusion on the dance floor. > > Tom > > > _______________________________________________ > List Name: Callers mailing list > List Address: Callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net > Archives: https://www.mail-archive.com/callers@lists.sharedweight.net/ >

5 years, 6 months

Re: [Callers] Callers Digest, Vol 65, Issue 18

by tom hinds

Call dances where the dancers have physical contact as much as possible I.e. circles allemandes etc. Avoid moves like mad robin and heys. Change heys to heys with hands etc. Sent from my iPad > On Sep 27, 2019, at 4:06 PM, callers-request(a)lists.sharedweight.net wrote: > > Send Callers mailing list submissions to > callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/callers-sharedweight.net > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > callers-request(a)lists.sharedweight.net > > You can reach the person managing the list at > callers-owner(a)lists.sharedweight.net > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Callers digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. What can you do as a caller to help people on the floor who > clearly have no sense of the flow of a dance? (Winston, Alan P.) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2019 20:40:07 +0000 > From: "Winston, Alan P." <winston(a)slac.stanford.edu> > To: Caller's discussion list <callers(a)sharedweight.net> > Subject: [Callers] What can you do as a caller to help people on the > floor who clearly have no sense of the flow of a dance? > Message-ID: > <DM5PR07MB40384E35F4585353A59A01A5F2860(a)DM5PR07MB4038.namprd07.prod.outlook.com> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > What do you as a caller to help people on the floor who clearly have no sense of the flow of the dance? (Sometimes you see people who will absolutely fight the flow of the dance to go the wrong way / do the wrong thing; there are others who are just sufficiently tentative about every figure that they've arrived at this figure late or with no useful momentum, or maybe they take so long to process a prompt that they'e dumped all their momentum by the time they're ready to move. ) How do you help those people? > > Who goes through the middle first in a Mad Robin was the example that made me think about this , but there are also questions like "coming out of the circle left which direction do the larks orbit while the robins allemande and which hand do the robins allemande with?" where answers seem inevitable but aren't. > > If you see people who are confused about the answers to these questions where the flow of the dance should answer them there's certainly always the possibility of continuing to prompt with the answers, but that's not really helping to develop an important skill I think is central to satisfying contra dance. > > -- Alan >

5 years, 6 months

What can you do as a caller to help people on the floor who clearly have no sense of the flow of a dance?

by Winston, Alan P.

What do you as a caller to help people on the floor who clearly have no sense of the flow of the dance? (Sometimes you see people who will absolutely fight the flow of the dance to go the wrong way / do the wrong thing; there are others who are just sufficiently tentative about every figure that they've arrived at this figure late or with no useful momentum, or maybe they take so long to process a prompt that they'e dumped all their momentum by the time they're ready to move. ) How do you help those people? Who goes through the middle first in a Mad Robin was the example that made me think about this , but there are also questions like "coming out of the circle left which direction do the larks orbit while the robins allemande and which hand do the robins allemande with?" where answers seem inevitable but aren't. If you see people who are confused about the answers to these questions where the flow of the dance should answer them there's certainly always the possibility of continuing to prompt with the answers, but that's not really helping to develop an important skill I think is central to satisfying contra dance. -- Alan

5 years, 6 months

Spring Cleaning

by Maia McCormick

How often do folks on here clean out (or not) their dance collections? I went through mine this evening and found some that I never call and keep meaning to, but it never happens -- even though some I recall really enjoying when I danced them. When and how do you decide to take a dance out of your collection? In clutter, Maia

5 years, 6 months

Re: [Callers] Using music in beginner session

by K Panton

Has someone a link to the Glen Echo newcomers workshop outline? Ken Panton Subject: Re: [Callers] Using music in beginner session Message-ID: <CAP+XMj6wpxqFAHV5XYp8a-SDDaZehS=U+94Y8FKp=Y8hEF9nCg(a)mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" I commend to your attention the outline of the newcomers workshop as it was developed at the Glen Echo contra dance. This is still rather close to the workshop that is given on Fridays, including using muisc throughout.

5 years, 6 months

Tempo for Squares

by Rich Sbardella

Folks, I am curious. Tempo for contra is often below 120 bpm. I learned to call squares at about 128 bpm. Is this significant difference the norm, and if so why? Rich Sbardella Stafford Springs, CT

5 years, 7 months

Re: [Callers] Using music in beginner session

by jmitchell.nc＠gmail.com

I commend to your attention the outline of the newcomers workshop as it was developed at the Glen Echo contra dance. This is still rather close to the workshop that is given on Fridays, including using muisc throughout.

5 years, 7 months

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