[Callers] (long) Long overdue update

Hello everyone, It's been a long time since I sent an update and boy, has a lot happened since. My last update was in May and I was about to call in North Whitefield, ME. A lot of things have happened outside of calling, as well. The biggest of which is moving to New Hampshire. I am going to try and be brief (for those of you who haven't read my other e-mails, this is going to be a stretch), but write a few sentences about each gig that I've had since. You can look at what my schedule has been/will be like at http://www.chrisweiler.ws/ * North Whitefield, ME 5/27 I was pretty nervous about this one, since I was substituting for Chrissy Fowler and didn't want to let her down. It was also only my second full evening of calling. I recorded most of the evening, and with the help of my friend, Clark Baker, we realized that I ran almost every dance very long (15-20 minutes from hands 4 to hands 4). I have since worked on this and now look at my watch and have a target end time for the dance to keep them below 15 minutes. The choreography for the evening worked well. I had a spy amongst the dancers (my cousin, Christi) who informed me that people had a good time. * MIT dances 6/7 and 8/9 Both of these went pretty well. I split the calling on 6/7 with Mark Schneider and on 8/9 with Mark, Ron Bernier III and Cortni Frescha. The 6/7 gig taught me a lot about choreographing on the fly and about working with another caller who views things differently. The 8/9 gig was more planned and went off smoother. * Square Dance Callers Workshop 7/23-30 at Pinewoods during American Week Kathy Anderson taught this course and boy was it great! We had a lot of fun, and I learned a lot about calling squares. I called my first square at Camper's Night and it went off pretty well. We had a great group and I'm sure that we're all going to be talking about water squares for a long time. 8^) One of the great experiences of the weekend was in class. I was struggling with calling a square and was constantly checking the card to remind myself of the figure. Kathy came over when I was done and took the paper out of my hand and said "now call it!" or something like that. What a freeing experience! I didn't call it exactly "right", but I didn't feel tied down to the material anymore and just did what came naturally. I had a lot more fun and everyone told me how much it showed. Another was the "show and tell" on the last afternoon at camp. We had everyone get into squares, with two callers dancing in each square. The band was in the middle of the dance floor and one of the two callers taught a dance, then called it from the square. We had 6 or 7 squares all dancing different dances! Then we did it again with the other caller. It was great fun! * East Sandwich, MA 8/20 My third full night of calling. I was much more comfortable than the first time that I called here. I discovered that I was able to recognize and recover when the band and I had become out of sync by an "A" or "B" part. You know the night is going well when you're feeling envious of the dancers and wish that you were out there on the floor. 8^) I was still having some troubles with running dances long, but did a better job of it that night. We had to end the dance early because people left and we only had 6-8 dancers left. I still don't have a good triplet repertoire to draw from. I had just moved into my new place. From this point on, I have been very busy and lax about preparing and practicing for dances. * VFW hall, Cambridge, MA 9/1 NEFFA multi-caller night This evening was such a blast. Working with some of my caller friends and with incredible musicians. I had some teaching problems because the two dances that I did in the first half melded in my brain into one dance. It took a big rewind and some studying of my cards to recover. I think that I handled it with some poise and self-deprecation and no one minded. This was a lot more fun than my first evening (when I had a raging cold and could barely think through all of the drugs that I was on). * Medway 10/1 This is the first evening of my marathon of calling during October. Five gigs in six weeks. I have the dance list below (I had started this e-mail once before and typed in the list). This dance has a good sized group of beginners and even the regulars still have some raw edges, so I kept things simple. There was a gentleman there who was elderly and didn't get around very well. He also didn't know when to shortcut a figure in order to be on time. All I could do was to call to the rest of the hall and hope that his foursome would recover before the end of each time through the dance. During the first dance, he fell down and couldn't get up in time for the next round of the dance, so I stopped the music immediately so people could help him. He was helped to a chair and only danced a couple of more times during the evening. One of the things that I was disappointed in was that I had to pay so much attention to the dancers through the whole dance, that I couldn't spend any to communicate with the band. It's something that I'm still working on. You'll see below that I was able to bring out some more difficult choreography later in the evening since a lot of the beginners left. Midwest Folklore Broken Sixpence Esmerelda's Revenge Spring Fever Marian's Delight The Baby Rose You're Among Friends Shadrack's Delight Swingin' on a Star (square) The Carousel Haymaker's Jig * Mystic 10/8 I learned here that it's a bad idea to schedule a first meeting with an online date just before a dance. It was disastrous and it affected me all evening. The woman who was running the hall said that she didn't notice, and that everyone was having fun, so I did a good job of working through it. Again I have the dance list below. I used a cordless microphone for the first time this evening and it was wonderful. See the section at the end for more info about that. The squares that I called this evening went particularly badly. I've been gun-shy ever since due to my lack of practice. I think that this is when I realized that people are having a fun time mostly because I'm having fun and the band is having fun and the mistakes don't matter so much. I taught my first beginner session this night and it went OK. Mostly because the people there had already danced once or twice. I still have to sit down and work out a better "lesson plan" for the workshop. Midwest Folklore Broken Sixpence Esmerelda's Revenge Spring Fever Marian's Delight The Baby Rose You're Among Friends Shadrack's Delight Swingin' on a Star (square) Knave's Quadrille (square) Haymaker's Jig * Saratoga, NY 10/15 In case you hadn't noticed, not too many of these dances are very close to home. These weekend trips mostly happened in the rain and drained me pretty thoroughly. I was working with a great old-time duo this evening. I really wanted to call squares, but my lack of practice, low energy after the long trip and the previous bad experience convinced me to chicken out. The interesting thing about this dance was that even though there was a small percentage of beginners, they were all concentrated in one line (the other line was the "center" set). If they had mixed a little more, I could have called more interesting choreography, but instead had to call to the "weaker" set. I had my first experience with a woman who was bound and determined to tell me how I taught something "wrong" during my beginners workshop. This is where Joseph Pinmentel's workshop helped me a lot to not get into an argument with her and thank her for her feedback. The program was very similar to Mystic, but without squares and I was able to do one with a hey later in the evening. I'm finding that I like ending with Haymaker's Jig (or Lady of the Lake if you wish) since it works well with a small crowd. * Hawthorn Valley Farm Benefit Dance 10/29 Amble Dance Hall, Mellenville, NY Much better weather for this trip. I lengthened it by attending David Millstone's callers workshop that day as well. The workshop was wonderful and it was great sharing what I've learned with the new group that he's teaching. I hope that some of them will join this list and participate in the discussion. The dance, since it was a benefit, drew some experienced dancers, but more raw beginners. This was an interesting mix and I had a hard time choosing between my easy contras and family style dances. I started off the evening with Haste to the Wedding. People seemed to enjoy dancing it, but there was little interest in the clapping. That told me to lean more towards the easy contra side for the rest of the evening. The band had not played for very many contras and we had some difficulty with communicating early on. I didn't have the language to give them the information they needed, so they played what they wanted and I called what I wanted. Not a great evening, but it worked out. Most of the crowd were teens and twenties who were dancing wildly and didn't care about being on time for the next figure. I found that they had so much trouble getting in and out of swings that I started calling dances that only had swings of 10 or more beats. That also kept the piece count down and made it easier for everyone. The organizers, though, had a great time and felt that it worked out better than the other benefit dance they had where the caller only called family dances and the crowd was hungry for more interesting choreography. Haste to the Wedding Broken Sixpence (I taught this one during the workshop and I think that it helped) The Baby Rose La Bastringue (went particularly well) Spring Fever (not so great) Cadence by Byron Ricker (everyone got into this one) Midwest Folklore (mostly young people in this one, they had a blast) Frederick Contra (everyone enjoyed this one - only 8 people so I grabbed a partner and dance up and down the hall with my cordless so we had 2 foursomes dancing every time through) At this point the organizer felt that too many people had left, so we cut the evening short. * Cordless Microphone As longtime readers will know, I have been investigating buying a cordless microphone for a few months now. One of the best pieces of advice that I got from a sound man (during the Square Dance course at Pinewoods) was to rent different microphones and see how you sound in each one. I found a local shop that would rent microphones and tried out the Shure PGX system with both the Beta 58 and the SM58 mics. I rented them for the Mystic dance and the Saratoga dance. I decided that I liked the Beta 58 and how easy the PGX is to set up and use. I was looking forward to a lot of gigs in the near future, so I bought the setup that I was using. They even credited the rental fees towards the purchase. I bought it earlier than I planned, but I have enough gigs coming up to pay for the purchase (not counting other expenses!). 8^) Whew!!! Congratulations on reaching the end of another long winded e-mail. I kinda accelerated as I went along there. So much for being brief. One of the problems with traveling so far to dances has been the inability for my friends (especially my calling friends) to come to the dances and provide feedback. The organizers that I ask all tell me that I did great, but don't have any suggestions about what I could be working on. Some of it I know: squares, beginners workshop, material for high percentages of beginners, etc. What I don't know is how my stage presence has evolved. I am looking forward to Ralph Page in January. There is usually an open mic. session and there is a caller who is dedicated to providing feedback to the participants. Last year Tony Parks gave me great information to work with. OK, I'm tapped out now. I hope you've enjoyed this installment. More adventures to come! Happy calling and happy dancing!! Chris Weiler