I did something similar to Diane Silver in my “deep collection” period, the difference was I recorded every dance I attended—with permission, of course. Then, when I became the house caller in San Luis Obispo, I’d use the hour-and-a-half drive from my home in Santa Barbara, to listen to the dances and scrawl the choreography on the way. Saved me from the missing the walk-through. One advantage of this, I also caught the teaching. I’d have times when I’d say, “that description didn’t work that well,” or, “that was a great way to teach that dance.”

 

Thus, I recording dances, with that permission first. You get to go through a walk-through, feel what is like to go through the teaching, then re-live it when listening to the recording as you transcribe the dance. I’d also get to enjoy the music and process the dance. OK, I’m not recommending writing while driving, but finding a time to listen, transcribe, and review your experience. It’s a great way to learn, at least for

 

Another technique I tell students to is when the caller stops calling, call the dance as dancing. Call under your breath if calling is not needed, call out loud if your in a trouble spot. This is a way to feel how the place the timing of the call to end on the phrase preceding the motion.

 

Cheers,

Erik Hoffman

  Of Santa Barbara, now in Oakland, CA

 

From: Diane Silver <dsilver.asheville@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, January 13, 2025 10:27 AM
To: Erik Hoffman <erik@erikhoffman.com>
Cc: Shared Weight - Contra Callers <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net>
Subject: Re: [Callers] Re: Unifying contra dance formats with AI

 

 

Any teacher will tell you that engaging with the material leads to mastery. It's why authentic, problem-based learning is considered better than book-learning, and it's also why, at the very least, you were assigned study guides or outlines or such when you were in school -- forcing you to re-write info from the textbook, rather than just reading it.

Most of my collection is dances I collected by dancing them myself. When I was starting out, I was in deep collection mode, and kept a little notebook in my dance bag. I'd finish a dance, get my next partner, then scurry over to my notebook to jot down the dance we just did before I forgot it, then scurry back to the line before the music started. I often missed the walk-through, but I figured, if I can't dance without a walk-through, I have no business trying to be a caller. Then at home I'd transcribe the scribbles onto cards. I have no doubt that that process helped me as a new caller. I have often wondered if it's really a service to new callers when they ask to just take a picture of my card. The teacher in me wants to take the road of tough love and make them do the same work I did, but I usually let them just have it because they haven't asked for that level of mentorship.

 

On Sun, Jan 12, 2025 at 5:01 PM Erik Hoffman via Contra Callers <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

From Louise Siddons:

Also, specifically in terms of programming (which someone mentioned), there are aspects of calling where experience is a key element of the learning process. Shortcuts will be detrimental to the caller’s experience even if the dancers don’t notice.

 

From me:

This is much like late Larry Jennings’ decision to transcribe dances in his book, Zesty Contras and Give-and-Take with abbreviations and in a form that was not common in the time. His thinking was people using his books would have to think about the dance they were planning to call had to think about the dance as they re-transcribed it. I recall the challenge of putting dances down on a card (remember those?) (and I know people still use cards…) from Zesty Contras and doing just what Larry intended: thinking a dance through as I put it down in my re-abbreviated cards.

 

Cheers,

~Erik Hoffman

        Oakland CA

 

From: Louise Siddons via Contra Callers <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net>
Sent: Sunday, January 12, 2025 12:35 PM
To: Shared Weight Contra Callers <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net>
Subject: [Callers] Re: Unifying contra dance formats with AI

 

 

AI is resource-intensive and an environmental disaster. Using it for trivial purposes feels worse than pointless to me.

 

Also, specifically in terms of programming (which someone mentioned), there are aspects of calling where experience is a key element of the learning process. Shortcuts will be detrimental to the caller’s experience even if the dancers don’t notice.

 

In the spirit of slow food, might we not consider ‘slow folk dance’ as taking a positive, sustainable position in relation to the climate crisis? There is no actual need to make anything related to contra dancing more efficient.

 

(I’m reminded of the joke that dancing is a very complicated way of going nowhere. Surely in some sense we embody the idea that the journey is the destination?)

 

Louise.

(Winchester, UK)

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