Re: [Callers] Shadow swings

I currently don't have any dances with shadow swings in my repertoire, by choice. Part of that is to avoid the situation where you're forcing two people to swing together who Really Don't Want To Swing Over and Over. And they'll let you know it, whether it's a breakup, or one person's someone that they don't want to dance with. (In my first community I went to, there was one person like this. It would drive which lines people went into, people would refuse sometimes to neighbor swing with said person, and it really corrupted the whole partner- asking dynamic of the dance. So I'm shaped by an extreme.) There's the secondary reason that it's not as interesting as it's the same person over and over and over. And you've already got your partner over and over and over, with the partner swing I need to pander to. So that cuts out still more neighbor interaction. It's why I strongly prefer neighbor grand right and lefts to shadow grand right and lefts, for instance. A shadow can be a convenient marker to create the effect of a lose-and-find partner sequence, so they do have their uses. Yet I call a dance with a shadow swing about one night of every three. They're the four-face-fours where you swing your corner. So I fully admit to irrational hypocrisy. -Chris Page San Diego