We have this situation at our dances in Hfx (approx 50% new each time, and level of learning for returners is slow in between,  because we have a pool of a few hundred dancers who all come occasionally but few of them come to every single one of our 8 dances per year, and there aren't any other local contra dances happening at the moment so we are their only learning opportunity).

Here is how I work the learning progression each night, to ensure the beginners (and others who are still learning) do not get too confused.
I try to introduce ONLY one new concept per dance.

----
Intro session for beginners -
Introduce the bird roles and the relative position of each when standing facing into the circle (Larks on left, Robins on right). 
Then, introduce what I call "home place" - have the Ravens step into the circle to face the larks, and do a simple figure for 8 counts and come back to home.
Teach allemande left and right (which I call left and right hand turns) and teach them how to feel and play with centripetal force.
Teach right hand balance and pull by without looking back - and talk about the "push me pull you/elastic connection" feeling.

-----
First dance - spiral dance (we get the music started and all stand in a circle. We count the beats of 8, and we clap to the beat.  Then I get them moving with calls like circle left and right, into the centre and back - without any walk through.  Then I wind up and unwind the spiral.) - gets them used to moving to the music and listening to my calls.

----

Second dance - simple circle mixer - gets them used to a walk-through and dancing a dance with a 64-beat repeating structure.
And I get them to practice at least one figure they will use in the next dance (in this case right hand balance and pull by)
E.g.
big circle circle left
circle right
into the centre, stomp feet
into the centre, say "hey!"
For next 32 beats, everyone scatter and find at least one person to balance right and pull by with (as ppl get more comfortable I challenge them to do this with 2 or even 3 people).... and then reform the circle on time for the dance to start again.

I dance this about 8-10- times through-- not long as it's not very interesting - but it's fun for a bit!

----
Third dance
A very easy contra dance in a sicilian circle so they can get the sense of a duple minor improper dance formation, without having to deal with being out at the ends.

And this is a key thing in my mind:  for a duple minor improper dance to be classified as SIMPLE, each figure lasts only 8 counts and each figure ends with them coming back to their original "home place".
We talk about "home place" a lot during the first few dances.

Also key: the progression should always happen from home place and be a straight walk - i.e. no do si do or allemande 1.5 which gets pelple turning in circles and leads to confusion.
 My top choice is right hand balance and pull by your neighbour.
  Balance ring and pass N by right shoulder is also good.  Or arches where one couple ducks under the other.

Finally -- before I do the walk through, we first identify neighbour and partner and practice facing each of them.  I might say "point to you partner!  Now point to your neighbour!  Now high five your partner! Now high-ten your neighbour!".
 We then practice the figure we learned in the preceeding dance - right balance and pull by neighbour - to see how the sicilian circle progresses.  We progress the circle several times to ensure people are crystal clear on the progression/their direction of travel, prior to learning any other parts of the dance.
Then we do the walk-through.

"Very simple contra dance" (can be done in lines or sicilian)  I wrote this myself but acknolwedge it has probably been invented before :)
Circle left
Circle right
Right hand star
Left hand star

Look to your partner, right hand turn (a right hand turn is what I call a right hand allemande)
Look to your neighbour, left hand turn*
Form a ring and balance it twice
Right hand balance with your neighbour and pull by to the new group.

*after walking the right and left hand turns, I pause in the walk-through and talk about the importance of linking figures to feel a never-ending flow-  we now practice doing the partner right hand turn and the neighbour left hand turn one after another without ever stopping moving.

This dance is a total winner for me.  It is fun, super straightforward, and almost never results in any confusion, an excellent "Training" dance in my view!!

-----

before the fourth dance: Progressing contra lines

before I do a fourth dance, I get people to watch a demo of 3 duples in a contra line in the centre of our "Teaching circle" - they do random interactons with each other and then progress using a right hand pull-by.  We progress it a few times and carefully watch and talk about what happens when you are ejected at the end.

Then I get everyone to form a series of shorter-than-normal duple improper contra lines. (i.e. max 3-4 duples in each line ideally)
We then do a series of random interactions in the duples (e.g. face across to your partner.  HIgh five your partner!  Now face up and down to your neighbour.  Do a right hand turn with your neighbour and come back to home!  Now take right hands with your neighbour and pull by to the new group!")
I run these little activities over and over, eventually paring it down to just the "pull by the right with your neighbour!"- until everyone has been out at the top and the bottom and back into the dance at least once.  I find this really helps avoid later confusion.

----

fourth dance - Duple minor improper dance without ever leaving home place (or without leaving it for long).  Same or similar progression to the Sicilian dance.

So now the key for me is to get people totally comfortable in what I Think of as a "standard" (duple minor improper) contra dance, without taking them out of the home position they are becoming accustomed to.

This means using figures like right and left allemands/shoulders round, one and two hand balances, and do-si-dos for partner/neighbour interaction... and figures like circle/star right and left, balance the ring, LLFB for interaction with your full duple -- but avoiding swings for now.

Recently I've even taught a Larks (right handed) chain for the fifth dance of the evening, before teaching a swing, and it went over very well!

Here's an example of a fourth dance I used recently, inspired by Louise Siddon's recent post about her balance the star move.  The dancers really loved it and we all took a moment to give some applause to Louise for the inspiration!

Right hand star (hands across)
Balance the star, spin right
Left hand star
Balance the star, spin left (note you should be in your original home place!)

Partner right hand turn (aka allemande)
Neighbour left shoulder round
Long lines forward and back
Neighbour: 2 hand balance once, then pass by the right shoulder (with a little tug off your neighbour's hands!) to the new group.

----
fifth dance - take them temporarily out of home position - and get them to notice it - , but get them back to home before the progression

(again, I'll note that I write most of my early-evening dances to craft exactly what I want, but it doesn't mean that this dance doesn't already exist, so I humbly offer credit to whoever else in the universe may have written this!  I definitely give credit to Sherry NEvin's family contra for this one :) )

Balance the ring x 1 then snap open the line to face down the hall (the line breaks between the #2 larks and robins)
Down the hall, turn alone
Come on back, bend the line (notice you are out of home place!)
Balance the ring x 1 and pass neighbour by the right shoulder (to switch places with your neighbour and face in to the circle again- back to home place!)

Partner right hand turn
Neighbour do si do
As couples, do si do (you have about 12 counts to do this, don't rush it)
Pull your neighbour by the right hand, to progress to the new group

---
Sixth dance - Do either a swing or a proto-swing move.  Possibly include a raven's chain.

More recently before doing a dance with a swing, I've now been doing a dance with the following instead:

Open the dance with an 8-beat figure:
 neighbour 2 hand balance and wheel around to switch places, with the robins in the centre and the larks on the outside as they switch.  End facing across to partners do do either a partner interaction, or LLFB, or ravens chain.

This has the same effect as a short swing, but without turning round and round which has more potential to lead to confusion.
Rather, if you just tell the neighbours to switch places, everyone is bound to end up in the correct position.

This helps set the stage for a seventh dance which could open with with a 2 hand balance and swing with neighbour - everyone will already have a muscle memory of where to end the swing.

Here's an example of a sixth dance I did recently that worked well.
This one actually doesn't have the "proto swing" that I describe above, but it still went well.
As always, apologies/credit to anyone else who has written this dance before me :)

Circle left
Circle right
Balance the ring and petronella turn one place (no clap!) to join your partner on the side
Swing your partner

Long lines forward and back
Neighbour let shoulder 'round (Emphasize the flow between this and next move)
Circle right 3 places to go back to your home place - hold an inside hand with your partner to face the other couple
As couples, veer right and stomp twice, then veer left to the new couple!

-------
I'll stop with the dance examples there, but for my seventh dance I would include both a neighbour and a partner swing, but no other new figures, so they can just practice everything they've learned so far.  You'll notice that every dance so far has also involved the couples coming back to home place, before progressing.

Perhaps in the 7th dance, I would try them out on a progression where the 1s and 2s have already switched places.
A really good way to do this is something that involves turning 180 from your old neighbour to face the new neighbour (as opposed to exploding a star to new neighbours, which is more disorienting).

For example, at our last event, I had a 7th dance where the 1's were already below the 2's at the end, and for the last figure, you do a single two hand balance with your neighbour, then change to "patty cake hands" (I said this playfully) and push off your neighbour's hands, to turn 180 degrees to new neighbour.  Not the most twirly-fun move, but straightforward and hard to mess up.

It matches the philosophy I've been honing with my group, which is, if you start with more straighforward moves, it might sacrifice some level of potential "Fun" at the start, but it means you can build skills quickly and confidently without major setbacks (like six walkthroughs! been there!!), and therefore move towards more "fun" in an efficient manner while minimizing frustration along the way.
In my dances, the first 5 or 6 may not be rip-roaring dances, but they always go smoothly and nobody can complain.
I used to try for harder ones earlier on - which in theory pleases the more advanced dancers, but in practice pleased nobody cause we just couldn't get them off the ground without a ton of setbacks, with our large number of beginners!!

(oh, and for an eighth dance I'd introduce something else new (e.g. wavy lines, ravens chain if not already done, or maybe a hey though I haven't felt ready to ask my group to do a hey yet!!  maybe next month :)  )

Hope this is helpful :)

Kat K in Halifax
Allison and Hunt Smith via Contra Callers
Tuesday, March 14, 2023 9:32 AM
My local group stays consistently "advanced beginner", so this question is relevant to me. 

The most important rule I've learned is- the more figures, the more confusing to newbies. Dances like "Woods Hole Jig" by Tony Parkes, or "The Baby Rose", by David Kaynor, have the simplest of moves, and not too many of them. 

Before the break, I might add a figure or two, as in "Airpants" by Lisa Greenleaf. After the break, one or two with a few more, with perhaps some unfamiliar/less traditional figures- as in "Stoolies Jig" by Cammie Kaynor. Towards the end of the evening, as dancers are getting tired, I'll throw in a square dance or two, and almost always end with the wonderful Running Set concept, ending with a Spiral Dance (I didn't participate in that recent discussion because everything I wanted to say got said, and better, by others).

The-other-Allison



--
www.huntandallison.net

www.info@thsmaritime.com

www.centralhallcommons.org



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Julian Blechner via Contra Callers
Tuesday, March 14, 2023 9:16 AM
Recovery time.

Al's Safeway has none.

Look for dances with swings over 8 beats, long lines, "0 moves" where dancers wind up in the same spot.



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Joe Harrington via Contra Callers
Tuesday, March 14, 2023 12:43 AM
I've been calling less than a year, so I'm still learning. One problem I have is that, when looking at a written-out dance, I'm consistently underestimating the difficulty for newbies.  My group is about 50% newbies every week, and it isn't large, usually about 20 dancers at peak.  Last week, I thought Al's Safeway Produce would be accessible, as it has just allemande, swing, circle, long lines, and star.  But, the star-to-star progression was more than they could do, because the stars were poorly synchronized and we're gender-neutral, so people didn't realize whether the people coming at them were the right ones to dance with or not, and stars quickly started having the wrong members and the wrong number of members.  (I should have given up after six walkthroughs, I didn't, and that's another lesson learned.)

So, I'm looking for a better set of rules to identify an easy dance than the set I'm currently using, which is basically: glossary moves only, mostly connected moves, and enough recovery moves (long swings, etc.).  A recent thread generated a list of such dances, which has been useful.  But, I'm going through lists of dances people like (like the ones posted on this list, the CDNY list that Bob Isaacs compiled, and others posted online) and looking for ones I can call to my group, especially early in the night.  What would you add to this list of rules that, if satisfied, indicate a dance is likely easy-peasy?

Easy-Peasy Dances Suitable for New Dancers Right Out of the Lesson...

Have only very basic moves found in most dances, or at most one more that is simple to teach.
Have mostly connected moves.
Have at least two moves where dancers can recover from recent mistakes (e.g., balance and  swing).
Don't spin too much (at most one 16-count swing, better none).
Are improper or possibly Beckett (if the dance is quite simple).
Keep the dancers within their minor set until the progression.
Have a simple progression.
Have a progression where the neighbors are likely to be there.
Have a progression that recovers easily if messed up (e.g., followed by recovery move).
Progress at the end of the dance.

What else to add?

Thanks,

--jh--
Joe Harrington
Organizer, Greater Orlando Contra Dance
Faculty Advisor, Contra Knights, the UCF contra dancing club
contraknights.org
FB, Ig: Contra Knights
contradancerjoe@gmail.com



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