Re: [Callers] easy ONS dances where partner is kept?

Linda mentioned The Snowball in her recent post. I learned that dance from the very useful website maintained by Thomas Green: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/greenery/BarnDances/WholeSet.html#The%20Snowba… He credits the dance (slightly different than Linda's version) to Martin Hodges. I in turn have modified the printed version by having the 5s simply gallop up to the top and back down again, instead of casting back, a minor point. I find it a really useful dance for several reasons. First, it includes the basic figures that one might need to include in an evening: hand turns, stars, circles, lines forward and back, swing, and a progression. Because it's in five couple sets and not everyone is moving all at once, it's a bit calmer than some other dances I call in such settings. The dancers farther down the line who are watching those who are moving inevitably start clapping along in time to the music. One wrinkle is that the dance is designed to be 48 bars of music, so it works best with a three-part tune, AABBCC. When I called it Friday night at the local PTO dance (our 28th annual!), the band picked Merrily Kissed the Quaker's Wife, a three-part jig. Other tunes that your musicians might know that would fit this pattern are Set de Ronfleuse Gobiel (the Snoring Mrs. Gobiel, a staple in the Quebecois repertoire) Ragtime Anie (with its third part), Reel Beatrice, Quadrille Jos Bouchard. If you're working with recorded music, there's good recording of the latter two tunes on the Sashay the Donut album, and another of Snowball 6x (Reel de Rimouski/R. des accordeonistes) on the Any Jig or Reel album, both available from New England Dancing Masters. Of course, you could also have a band play AABBAB, or AABB and then another tune AB, and most dancers won't even notice. I find as a caller that it helps me to have the structure of the three part tune to support my prompting. I will put in a plug for all of the New England Dancing Masters books as supremely useful for such settings. Also those my Marian Rose. Paul Rosenberg's Sashay the Banana contains lots of useful material, and of course Dudley's books. David Millstone Lebanon, NH