13 Apr
2025
13 Apr
'25
5:27 p.m.
I have a few comments for you, Taco, thanks for your question.
In teaching a new figure, whether you are doing it within the context of the dance or not,
crucial information is where the dancer is going to end up. If they flub, no worries, as
long as they are in the correct position to start the next figure. Always describe the end
position in some fashion.
Be wary of teaching a figure out of the dance context. When you get to the dance, you
might have missed that this dance requires a different starting or ending position from
what you had taught. Anticipate this! Plan ahead - ensure you are teaching the new figure
EXACTLY how it appears in the next dance, which may mean putting people into a progressed
or proper position first, which may in itself be confusing. I always teach in the context
of the dance unless I feel an out-of-dance context adds something particularly
illuminating for the dancers. I have taught heys for four starting in a large circle and
using hands, then paring the group down until they're in a line of 4, which has worked
well. I haven't yet seen a similar benefit to teaching other figures in that manner.
Always demonstrate the figure. More information can be communicated with a visual,
especially with beginner dancers.
You should always explain yourself in more detail during the walkthough and specifically
identify to the group what your short form is going to be while calling. It would sound
like this: "Robins only, take left hands and turn around once and a half to end in
each other's place. At the end of this Left hand turn, you will have traded places
with the other Robin and be with your partner on the side of the dance, ready for Partner
Swing. In the dance, I'm going to call "Robins, Left to Trade for this
figure."
Instead of the two options you proposed, "get better at calling" and "teach
easier dances," I recommend this third option: identify exactly what is preventing
you from achieving your vision and brainstorm several strategies for coping with or
solving that problem. This is a collaborative approach. It means you need to solicit
feedback from dancers in a meaningful way in order to understand what are the impediments,
and you need to have a keen eye in observing the dancers while you call. Question like
"Are people having fun?" might lead you to believe that nothing needs changing
regardless of blunders or good walkthroughs. If people say "I can never figure out
...such and such..." then you've got something to work with. "Get better at
calling" is an honourable goal but might be taking too much responsibility for the
dancers' lack of experience or skill - I caution this for your own sense of burden and
enthusaism.
The above process in my group produced several confusion points.
- People forgetting to change places with their partner while out during an improper
dance.
- This led me to call a lot of proper contras, or dances where it didn't matter what
side you were on. I've been doing that for 3 years while people have been developing
their other skills and I find they have much improved. Now improper contras are easier to
focus on. Coloured wrist bands have also helped.
- People circling too far or not far enough (which is really bad in dances like Tom
Hinds' Nothing Contra)
- I avoided dances like this, but also came up with a wrist band system to help people
identify who is who and what role they're dancing.
- People ending up on the wrong side after a swing
- Wrist bands helped, but keeping with an asymmetrical swing hold and using the
"pointy hands" concept from Louise Siddons did more
- Lines getting strung out and consistently advancing down the hall farther than retiring
back up to place, then not knowing why their new neighbour isn't right beside them but
7 feet away up the hall.
- Still working on it!!!!
Greg, from Winnipeg
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On Sunday, April 13th, 2025 at 12:01 PM, Taco van Ieperen via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Hi All,
I've been thinking a lot about calling for beginner dancers. I've seen big
changes in the last few years where our dances now often have more than 50% newcomers.
As a relatively new caller. I have some observations and ideas, and I'd love
perspective from people who are more experienced.
Walkthroughs:
With experienced dancers, you can do an efficient walkthrough and teach a figure in the
context of the dance. With beginners, I've seen walkthroughs fall apart because by the
time you've explained a move and dealt with the group that has gotten all scrambled,
the dancers have completely forgotten where they are in the walkthrough and where they
started the dance. This is leading me towards the idea of isolating new figures *before*
the walkthrough: If it's the first time doing a move, teach the move first, and then
do the walkthrough that includes this move. "This dance has a new figure called a
Robin's Chain. It works like this.... <chain stuff>. That looks great. Now
let's learn the dance...."
Also, with experienced dancers, people "get it" during the dance, so you can do
two walkthroughs and even if some people are confused ii will straighten itself out. With
new dancers it feels much more important that everyone succeed in the walkthroughs because
confusion can get worse instead of better. But at some point you can't keep doing
walkthroughs. My gut instinct is that if I teach the figures before and can't explain
the dance in two walkthroughs then I need to get better at walkthroughs or teach easier
dances.
Thoughts?
Caller Style:
I really like making each call four counts as it provides predictable rhythm to the
calling:
1,2,3,4, WITH your | PARTner | BALance and | SWING
For some calls I can give the destination location, or the destination person:
"Robins, Chain, Across the, Set"
"Neighbor, Dosido, to NEW, Neighbor"
vs
"Robins, Chain, To your, Partner"
"Neighbor, DoSido, Once and a, half"
To your partner seems more clear, but I can also see that having two different people in
the call could create confusion. Does one format work better in your experience?
Related, I find the most annoying figures to call are 1.5 figures. There's just no
way to say
"New Neighbor Allemande Left Once and a Half" in four beats. Also, beginners
struggle parsing 1.5x as trading places, especially across the set.
It seems like a lot of callers drop the Allemande and just shorten it to "Left"
or "Right". Which probably is fine after two clear walkthroughs.
So, which do you prefer? Do you have other ideas?
Robins, Allemande, Left, Across
Robins, Left, to Trade, places
Robins, Left, Once, and a Half
Robins, Left, to Your, Partner
Robins, Do si, do, across
Anyway, just thinking aloud and curious what other peoples thoughts are.
Taco
