9 Feb
2023
9 Feb
'23
1:45 p.m.
Just a thought, but has anyone checked with the lgbtq community about what
terms they would like to have used?
Another thought, someone mentioned earlier in the thread that the
terminology issue had been discussed thoroughly some time ago and the
decision had been made to go with the birds. I don’t remember seeing or
hearing about a general survey sent out to all the CDSS affiliates or any
other general list of dance groups around the country or world vetting that
decision
Personally, I’m exploring positional calling. Just my gut feeling, but I
think fewer people would be challenged by right/left directional calls than
by being called bird names.
Jim Thaxter
Columbia, MO
On Thu, Feb 9, 2023 at 6:31 AM Amy Cann via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Since no one else has mentioned this, I'll just
say that my entire
personal difficulty with birds comes from fairy tales and ornithology.
When we say "robin" we are mostly thinking about that bird with the
"red breast", right? Not something kinda reddish-brownish? That's the
male. In my childhood I read any number of books with
anthropomorphised birds, and Mister Robin Redbreast was male. In a
bunch of the stories there was also small, sweet-singing female lark.
Add to that that in the states the robin is a different bird from in
the UK, and much larger, I've got two good reasons to think of the
robin as being the "male" role. My brain weighs the imagery and
memories against that silly little detail of starting with "R" or
"L"
and defaults obstinately to the exact wrong conclusion every time.
EVERY time. It's somewhat maddening. But "Ravens" was even worse,
because ravens are black and men in formal clothing dress in black, so
I guess things are better now??
Whew. Change is hard.
On 2/9/23, Peghesley via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
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Bree, I’m making the same change as well and am
calling without
reference to
role and don’t need bird terms. Louise Siddons’
position is a compelling
one.
Peg Hesley
www.peghesley.com
Sent from my iPhone using voice recognition
> On Feb 8, 2023, at 7:04 PM, Bree Kalb via Contra Callers
> <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>
>
> I made the same changes Chrissy did and for the same reason. I think it
> was 4-5 years ago when I switched from M and W to Gents and Ladies. And
> it seems to me that almost all the local callers did the same.
>
> ( Now I’m calling without reference to gender or role. Louise Siddons
> booklet “Dance the Whole Dance” from CDSS describes well what many of us
> are learning to do.)
>
> If it matters, my dance community is in a progressive/liberal area, so
> calling styles here might be different than in other places.
>
> Bree Kalb
> Carrboro, NC
>
> On Wed, Feb 8, 2023 at 8:18 PM Jacob or Nancy Bloom via Contra Callers
> <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>>
>> At the Ralph Page Legacy day last month, Chrissy Fowler did a session
in
>> which she called dances as she called
them at different times in her
>> career. In it, she talked about how, at one point, she and other
female
>> callers were insisting on the term
"women" because they weren't ladies,
>> and then several years later they were insisting on the term "ladies"
>> because that was understood to be the name of a role.
>>
>> I can't give a year when it happened, but I do believe I remember a
time
>> when at least some callers were making it
explicitly clear that the
terms
>> Gents and Ladies referred to roles, and
anybody could dance either
role.
>>
>> Jacob
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 8, 2023, 2:29 PM Tony Parkes via Contra Callers
>> <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> I believe it’s in Myrtle Wilhite’s Lullaby of the Swing and other
contra
>>> dances, tunes, waltzes, and essays
(Madison, WI, 1993). I can’t lay my
>>> hand on my copy at the moment, but perhaps someone else has one.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Tony Parkes
>>>
>>> Billerica, Mass.
>>>
>>> www.hands4.com
>>>
>>> New book! Square Dance Calling: An Old Art for a New Century
>>>
>>> (available now)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> From: Mary Collins <nativedae(a)gmail.com>
>>> Sent: Wednesday, February 8, 2023 2:11 PM
>>> To: Jeff Kaufman <jeff(a)alum.swarthmore.edu>
>>> Cc: Tony Parkes <tony(a)hands4.com>om>; Joe Harrington
>>> <contradancerjoe(a)gmail.com>om>; contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
>>> Subject: Re: [Callers] Re: Gentlespoons/Ladles (from Rompin'
Stompin')
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Jeff, me too...if you find it, share please.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> mary
>>>
>>> "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those
who
>>> couldn't hear the music." -
Nietzsche
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> “Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass ... it's about
>>> learning to dance in the rain!” ~ unknown
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Feb 8, 2023 at 9:58 AM Jeff Kaufman via Contra Callers
>>> <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Aside: does anyone have a copy of the "I am not a lady" essay?
I'd
be
>>>> interested to read it.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Jeff
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Feb 8, 2023 at 9:54 AM Tony Parkes via Contra Callers
>>>> <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Joe Harrington wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> > When I started dancing in the late 1980s… Callers were taking
the
>>>>> > revolutionary step of not calling "men" and
"women" but rather
using
>>>>> > "ladies" and
"gents", to signal that switching roles was ok, since
>>>>> > nobody referred to themselves as a "lady" or a
"gent" in casual
>>>>> > conversation.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Where was this, Joe? And are you talking about contra callers
(rather
>>>>> than ECD)? I can only speak
about the NYC area in the 1960s and
early
>>>>> ’70s, and New England
starting in the late ’60s and continuing to
the
>>>>> present. In both regions,
square/contra callers (contras were a
>>>>> subcategory of square dance until around 1975) universally used
>>>>> “gents/ladies.” (I believe ECD teachers have always used
“men/women,”
>>>>> presumably emulating Playford
and Cecil Sharp.) AFAIK, northeastern
>>>>> callers pretty consistently used “gents/ladies” until some of them
>>>>> started to move away from gender-related terms. Tolman and Page’s
>>>>> Country Dance Book (1937) uses “gents/ladies,” as do most of the
other
>>>>> standard American dance books
from the 1900s to the 1950s (a few,
>>>>> aimed at schoolteachers, use “boys/girls”).
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I know of no region where callers changed from “men/women” to
>>>>> “gents/ladies.” I know that some callers, beginning I think in the
>>>>> ’80s, changed from “gents/ladies” to “men/women,” feeling that
>>>>> “gentlemen” and “ladies” smacked of classism. (One female caller, in
>>>>> an essay titled “I am not a lady,” requested that other callers not
>>>>> use her contra compositions if they adhered to “gents/ladies.”) As
an
>>>>> amateur (= lover) of dance
history, I would like to know about past
>>>>> changes of which I was unaware.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Tony Parkes
>>>>>
>>>>> Billerica, Mass.
>>>>>
>>>>> www.hands4.com
>>>>>
>>>>> New book! Square Dance Calling: An Old Art for a New Century
>>>>>
>>>>> (available now)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>> contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
>>>>
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>>
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>
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