In English, everything has names. Yes, we have descriptive names like “automobiles," but we refer to them as “cars." That doesn’t appear to be confusing to people. We COULD call a ball a “spherical object,” but “ball” is much simpler.

Do we need to rename a chain to “pull by the right and courtesy turn,” or hey to “weave around a bunch of people in an organized fashion?” There are many moves in contradancing with non-descriptive names - or names that ARE descriptive but only to a select few, i.e. “allemande” meaning "by the hand."

I think we need to trust that people have a goodly amount of intelligence, and as long as we are teaching the moves properly, people will attach the name with the movement.

That being said, I tend to call “petronella” as “spin to the right,” so maybe I’m a bit hypocritical!

Jeffrey Spero

Culver City, CA

On Sep 17, 2023, at 4:51 PM, Julian Blechner via Contra Callers <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

So, I had this worry, at first.

Back when Hampshire College was experimenting with various alternatives to Arm Bands / Bare Arms, we had a spreadsheet with all sorts of qualities to get an overview on how various terms compared, even if not a firm science. One of these was "does it sound like existing dance terms", which is why things like "ports/starboards" was ruled out. (At a house party that year, I danced to someone trying that, and it was immediately confusing.)

When Larks/Robins was evaluated, the assumption was that Robins would be confused with Mad Robin, so Ravens was attempted instead.

When some folks were looking for alter alternatives to Ravens, a few callers were trying out Robins, again. I recall Lisa Greenleaf had done so at a Pinewoods week, probably summer 2019? That Fall, at the Downtown Amherst Contra, we had been using Larks/Ravens and were considering going over. So, as an experiment, I volunteered to try at a gig at the dance I had calling that was coming up.

I called 3 Mad Robin dances that night.
The first was to teach it, maybe 4th dance of the evening, and I was sure it had no moves with a "Robins" prompt.

The second was early in the second half, and I specifically chose one which ought to have caused trouble - had like a Robins Chain to Mad Robin to Robins Allemande or something like that.

The third was a no walk through with a Mad Robin.

We had zero issues with any of them.

We've been dancing with the terms Larks / Robins, since, with various callers calling Mad Robins, maybe every 2nd or 3rd dance. We've had zero issues reported, and we're a dance that specifically asks on the mic for dancers to give us feedback.

What I think matters is that dancer brains are cueing from The "Mad" in Mad Robin.

So I can say with a high amount of confidence that Mad Robin and Larks/Robins works perfectly well. Even if I still think Ravens are a cooler bird and a better term. ;)

In dance,
Julian Blechner
He/Him
Western Mass

On Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 12:51 PM Gabrielle Taylor via Contra Callers <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Regarding the term "Mad Robin", it can potentially lead to some conflict with the gender-free "larks" and "robins", so I'd personally lean towards using a new name, though I'm not strong in that belief. I can definitely imagine new dancers hearing the term and thinking that it refers to something that only the robins do.

There was discussion back in 2019 in the comments of Jeff Kaufman's blog [1] about this, when the term "robin" was being suggested about this. Some there suggested that the term "Mad Robin" could be replaced with "sashay" or "full sashay" from MWSD. Apparently "full sashay" was used until the 1950s, meaning the same motion as a Mad Robin, but is not used today, although "half sashay" still is. I can't vouch for the accuracy of that discussion though, since I haven't danced MWSD, and I certainly wasn't dancing in the 1950s.

Gabrielle Taylor
She/Her
Massachusetts

[1]: https://www.jefftk.com/p/larks-robins
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