20 Sep
2013
20 Sep
'13
5:09 a.m.
I find "indecent" a rather useful term. At a base level, it at least
suggests the dance is neither proper nor what dancers reflexively think of
as improper. "Improper" doesn't really describe anything either; though
dancers recognize it, and there's a giggly association with the
antiquated-notion-of-gender-segregation-as-"proper" concept, it's as much a
"code word" as any other term we use. But the association between a
particular term and position on the dance floor affords precision without
an excess of explanation; for dancers at an average level of
contra-literacy, caller says "improper", and they know where to be. Could
argue every term we use is "just a code word", doesn't make that precision
less valuable. [What the hell does "hey" describe?!]
"Reverse improper" (like "backwards becket") so lacks clarity it gives
me
convulsions. If it's improper, 1s below 2s, well, that's
*progressed*improper, but dancers don't really need to know, they just
need to swing
their neighbor, and voila, progressed improper. But if a dance is reverse
progression, being clear about seems important (having experienced Jo
Mortland's "Galina" in situations where dancers *understood* the reverse
progression and others in which we were confused or unclear about it...).
And not all "indecent" dances are reverse progression.
I agree we should teach, to quote Woody, "in as few carefully-chosen words
as possible"; i agree with Michael that whether we go into detail about a
dance's progression is a case by case decision, but take issue with the
notion that which side of the set is "home" in a becket is a piece of
information that only matters when visualizing or reading choreography.
Maybe we could say, becket-CW versus becket-CCW are terms more useful to
visualizing choreography, while becket and becket-right are more useful to
dancers? I guess there's a point to be made - because i would never tell a
dancer something is "becket counterclockwise". I was mostly trying in
original post to make a point about proliferation of terms and need for
precision - iow, that *because we as callers lack a unified vocabulary for
certain less-common moves and formations, they remain rare and
automatically qualify as "challenging" with dancers because unlike more
common moves which are relatively standardized, they're a) infrequently
used b) referred to in different ways by different callers*. As opposed to
the more common "code words", like "hey" and "improper".
Here's an interesting question: do 1's still think of themselves as 1's
when a dance is becket?
Also back to the end-fx thread: teaching Chris Page's "Chain the Corner", I
once made a risque joke - "wait out at the end with your clothes off! it's
indecent, with the lady on the left" - and that's the one time dancers have
reliably remembered what i said about end effects ;]
Apologies if any of this sounded venomous; i just get frustrated when
people respond to anything but the point i was actually trying to make,
which is obviously my fault for not making the point clearly. y'all must
take with a grain of salt. Yet, in the pursuit of efficiency and precision,
some terms do give me convulsions.
~ seven of nine, tertiary adjunct of unimatrix zero one