17 Jan
2013
17 Jan
'13
2:34 p.m.
Thanks, Ron, for bringing up a different aspect of this issue.
I don't book ahead, either, and mostly dance in communities where it is
quite common to do so.
I've noticed that when there are large gender disparities, some people
still end up dancing every dance with somebody of their preferred gender,
while the same few people end up without partners consistently. Callers
and organizers often, in my community at least, stress to new dancers that
they should partner with a different person every time, and that they
should feel free to ask anybody and everybody to dance, etc. I don't think
this approach is the right one.
When there is a gender disparity at a dance where most dancers prefer to
dance with somebody of the opposite gender, there is a math problem. Some
people will have to sit out dances or dance with people of their own gender
throughout the night. Often, those people tend to be the people who do not
book ahead and are less competitive about immediately finding partners. I
do not think our solutions as callers and organizers should be aimed at
those people. Instead, I think we should aim any solutions at the people
who dance with those of the opposite gender every single dance, and do not
sit out the entire night. Those are the people who are most competitive
about partnering and book ahead the most.
So when I see large gender disparities, as a dancer, I personally ask my
male friends who book ahead and are the cool, hip, dancers to dance (that
is, if there are more men than women, which is common in my local dance).
Or I even see if they'd like to sit out and chat with me for a dance or
two. In my view, there should be an even distribution of people who sit
out or dance with somebody who is not of their preferred gender to dance
with. The way to do that is to target the people who are dancing every
dance with somebody of the opposite gender, not to target the people who
might be more community-oriented and are less competitive about partnering.
I know it's a bit awkward as a caller or organizer to ask certain dancers
not to dance a dance, or something along those lines. I do think it's ok
to point out to the crowd that, look, there's more men here than there are
women (or vice versa), so, if you've danced every dance so far with a
woman, try to dance one of the next couple with a man. But whatever the
caller does, I don't think it's productive to say things that imply that
it's the fault of the dancers who are community-minded enough to sit out a
dance that they should be the ones getting more competitive about finding
partners. Targeting comments only at the newcomers' session makes no sense
to me. In the dances I've been at, it's the experienced, popular dancers
who are not being community-minded and book ahead all of their dances with
people of their preferred gender, not the newcomers.
-Dave
On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 2:05 PM, Ron T Blechner <contraron(a)gmail.com> wrote:
You know, I just realized, regarding the
"sidelines" discussion ... no
one's yet mentioned "booking ahead". In the context of
getting-new-dancers-partners, I thought it might deserve its own thread.
Simply put: Booking ahead is a big threat to including new and/or
infrequent dancers.
When I was a newer dancer, and finally getting known as a fun dance partner
with enough people, there was the inevitable "I want to dance with all my
friends!" tendency that most newer dancers get. I booked ahead, sometimes
two dances ahead. I never booked *all* of my dances for the night, and I
did seek out and dance with people I didn't normally, on a regular basis.
Still, once I reflected upon it, it limited my dance partners somewhat.
I cut down to only booking "next dance". Then I cut down the number of
times in a night that I do that. Now, I will never book ahead as a rule,
but allow exceptions, usually for out-of-towners that I don't get to see
often, or a dancer that I simply haven't had the chance to dance with for
several weeks. I've found that I don't sit out any more often, I'm still
dancing with friends for about half my dances in the evening, and I'm
having just as much fun. At the same time, I don't have to worry about
remembering who I booked, nor about offending anyone by, "Sorry, got the
next one booked already!"
Nowadays, I'm a pretty okay dancer. And there are some dances I can walk
into, and people are super-friendly and I have no problem finding a
partner. Yeah, me being a kilt-wearing, name-button-sporting dancer with
decent dance shoes usually is an extra tip-off to people, too, in the same
way that if I saw a lady walk in that I didn't know, but she was wearing a
big multi-colored twirly shirt and dance shoes, I'd probably assume she
would be a good dance partner.
But... there are dances where it's difficult to find partners if you don't
know anyone. And then for introverts (which makes up a surprisingly high
percentage of the contra dance community), it's an even more difficult
task. When a dance finishes, and you blink, and everyone's partnered and
lined up within 30 seconds ... you know it. People have to be booking
ahead.
Frankly, booking ahead can be viewed by new dancers as unfriendly behavior.
At the head of my list of dance values is that contra is meant to be a
community dance. I believe that booking ahead, more than a few times in an
evening, is contradictory to this primary value.
If I had to speculate, I would hypothesize:
1. Dance organizers are very aware of who does this at their dances,
already.
2. Dance organizers are afraid to speak up about it, because they're afraid
of scaring off their "cool, hip dancers".
3. This can't possibly be a new problem. Haven't there been good solutions
to this in the past? Haven't there been dances that have realized they're
exclusive, and wanted to change, and successfully done so? What approaches
have they taken that are successful?
4. A dance community has to *want* to change this. They need to state
"inclusion of new dancers" as a value that they hold high.
I don't have a solution, but I do think that this ought to be a priority
discussion with dance organizers and callers.
Also, I'm optimistic that even one good dancer changing their behavior, and
clearly stating *why* they stop booking ahead, can have a strong influence
on other dancers. It was a couple of other dancers stating that they
stopped booking ahead at all that made me really reconsider my own booking
ahead; when I tell people that I don't book ahead, I have had some good
discussions stem from it, and I think I may have influenced a dancer or two
in that they can tone down how often they book ahead.
In dance,
Ron
http://contradances.tumblr.com
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