14 Apr
2023
14 Apr
'23
9:09 p.m.
One of my go-to dances for beginning contra dancers has everyone swinging
their partner in the center of the set at the same time. It works fine.
Before I start teaching the dance, I make sure that the dancers spread out
up and down the set so that they have enough room. (If the hall were too
crowded for them to spread out that much, then of course I wouldn't do that
dance.)
Jacob
On Fri, Apr 14, 2023, 9:31 PM Allison Jonjak via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
In my experience, two hand turns can (by dancers with
their wits about
them) have dynamic radii--as in, you can have your arms fully spread when
you have room, or you can tighten in your elbows when you don't. With
experienced dancers you keep 'weight' the same in both of these
configurations: (I say both but of course it can be anywhere along this
spectrum.)
[image: image.png]
red stars = dancers, green = their arms, with green dot = the held hands
So in ECD all couples can two-hand turn in the middle with a tight radius,
and no collisions.
(anyone who dances ECD more than me should definitely correct me here!)
On Fri, Apr 14, 2023 at 5:58 PM Winston, Alan P. via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Hi, John.
I do think it's interesting that (North American) contra rules are that
both couples swinging in the middle at once is too crowded, but (North
American) ECD is totally fine with everybody doing two-hand turns (which
have a bigger radius) at once, and a Community Dances Manual dance like "Up
the Sides and Down the Middle" is fine with having five couples swinging in
the middle at once. ECD typically uses up more space than contra (my rule
of thumb is 30sqft per dancer for ECD, 24 for contra, partly because ECD
does fall back, come forward and contra does forward and back) but how
different in size can sets formed by hands four, sometimes by the same
dancers, be?
-- Alan
________________________________________
From: John Sweeney via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
Sent: Friday, April 14, 2023 3:48 PM
To: contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
Subject: [Callers] Re: Does P swings (across set) work for you?
Hi Emily,
You say, “Can get away with in in longways dances but contras are a bit
tighter”. Hmm… contras ARE longways dances! How much space you need
depends on the dance, not the genre. A dance like Bases Loaded is a
contra, but definitely needs a bit more space up and down the room.
Happy dancing,
John
John Sweeney, Dancer, England john(a)modernjive.com 01233 625 362 &
07802 940 574
http://www.contrafusion.co.uk for Dancing in Kent
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--
Allison Jonjak
allisonjonjak(a)gmail.com
allisonjonjak.com
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