Look at Cary Ravitz's web page on contra dance choreography (http://www.dance.ravitz.us/chor.php), especially the section on what he calls black boxes.  http://www.dance.ravitz.us/chor.php#m  I think that is exactly what you are asking about.  He did a useful workshop on that subject at Pigtown Fling a few years ago.  

David Harding

Thank you so much David! I think this is exactly the kind of information I'm looking for, but I'm finding the format which Cary has everything set in pretty difficult to digest. I'll have to set aside some time to parse the information in a way that makes more sense to me.

Anyone else have any leads?

Thanks!
Angela

On Wed, Nov 15, 2017 at 1:00 PM, DAVID HARDING <dharding101@comcast.net> wrote:

Look at Cary Ravitz's web page on contra dance choreography (http://www.dance.ravitz.us/chor.php), especially the section on what he calls black boxes.  http://www.dance.ravitz.us/chor.php#m  I think that is exactly what you are asking about.  He did a useful workshop on that subject at Pigtown Fling a few years ago. 

David Harding

On November 15, 2017 at 11:39 AM Angela DeCarlis via Callers <callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

Hello all,

I'm remembering a few workshops I'd taken with Rick Mohr a few years ago, and also an occasion where I collected a dance from his calling. He happily gave me the name and author of the dance, but was also quick to note that he had substituted out different moves for 16 counts of the dance, so that it would work better with his evening's program.

Now, someone like Rick can just do this in his head. He has a data base of common combinations of dance moves, and where everyone ends up after executing them. As such, he can easily make substitutions on the fly, because he knows offhand that A+B=X+Y.**

What I'm wondering is, has anyone bothered to write down and compile a list of common choreography substitutions? I'm thinking a spreadsheet of some sort, where we think about the net product of various combinations of dance moves, and categorize the combinations based on their output.

For example: Neighbor Promenade across, Ladies Chain = Long Lines Forward and Back, Gents Allemande L 11/2.

If no one has already done this, I'll start a new thread where we can begin to collaboratively write one up! 

Thanks, All!
Angela
 

**Yes, the momentum in each of these scenarios is probably different, and one might be better than another. But this depends on the rest of the dance's choreography, and for these purposes I don't especially care. :)

***Also worth acknowledging that substituting out an entire 16-count phrase could easily result in calling a different dance written by a different author, but I'm more concerned about using this technique for practical programming purposes.

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