[Callers] Re: Agency and Language

While agency is a good thing, I don't think that equal agency at all times should be a goal. Others do feel this way, and that's legit, and this is a good discussion. But, I want to present a different viewpoint. Some of our dance moves come from lead-follow dances, where the dancers act asymmetrically. One opens the opportunity to do a move, the other decides whether, how, and when to respond. Ask any good swing, salsa, or ballroom dancer whether follows have equal agency! At the competition level, these dances are at least as much about the follows' decisions and how they execute them as they are about the dance that the lead shapes. Both dancers have equal amounts of agency, but it is not symmetric. Their roles are different. It's a physical conversation. Specifically for the rollaway, it is a lead-follow-style movement initiated by a tug across the tugger's body. Variants of it are seen in many lead-follow dances. I would have no problem with, "Robins, lead your partner in a rollaway as you half-sashay to swap". I would NOT say (for a robins-lead-larks rollaway), "Larks, roll away in front of your partner". That gives the larks the initiative, which ruins the connection and flow of this move. This is not giving the robins (in this case) the only agency. The lark can go quickly, hesitate for dramatic effect, double-spin, etc. In fact, they have a lot more options, and I'd say therefore more agency, than the robin does, in the move as a whole. In the move done straight, neither dancer has any agency. The caller has it all, in choosing the dance. To me, that's why we don't call the larks leads and the robins follows. We're all following the caller, who is the lead, until we do a variation. (Plus, "follows, lead your leads and leads, follow your follows across the set" just doesn't work, but that's another thread.) There aren't all that many asymmetric contra moves. Pickup into a star promenade is another. Ballroom-position swings are held asymmetrically, but we do them in close sync. A give-and-take has a sugar-push-like feel and is asymmetric. Again, the follow has more agency, as they're the only one making a real decision (how much to resist and when to stop). California twirls, gnats, and fleas are basically led turns in lead-follow dances, and that's how I mostly experience people dance them in contra, because communicating through connection is the point, not just walking a path marked on the floor in time. To me these feel more fun as led moves (i.e., the lark or taller dancer raises the joined hands and shapes the move so that the other follows under) than if both raise and walk together, without communicating anythin through the connection. That's true for me whether I'm a lark or a robin. but I also feel we wiped away any supposed disparity between the availability of agency in the roles by degendering them and letting people choose. Plus, the would-be follow can always steal that lead, style it as a rock-and-go, or do another variation. I wish we had more of that! I don't need everyone to feel the same amount of agency at every moment, nor even in every dance (some dances feature a subset of dancers). What's important, and key in programming, is that, at the end of the evening, we've each had plenty. --jh-- On Tue, Sep 2, 2025 at 3:56 PM Alan J Rosenthal via Contra Callers < contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net