20 Feb
2024
20 Feb
'24
11:24 p.m.
As a dancer, if I'm at the end of a line and see that there are
particularly lost-looking newbies in my foursome who are about to be "spat
out" after the walkthrough, I'll sometimes rotate our foursome to make the
new folks progress into the set so that they won't have to deal with
turnaround confusion right away. If I don't find out until after the
walkthrough is finished that it's a right-progressing Becket after all,
then in my attempt to help I may have actually made it worse for them.
So as a caller, I think it's always helpful to give people a heads up -
either "line up Becket; this dance will progress to the right," or (my
preference) "line up, take hands four, then turn one place to the right
into Becket formation." It's true that a lot of dancers don't notice or
care, but I think enough of us *do* care that it's worth giving just a word
or two to those who are listening for it.
As for identifying shadows, I find that unless I have *really* clear notes,
if I try to identify the relevant shadow at the beginning of the
walkthrough it often backfires on me. I usually prefer to just walk
everyone through the dance until they actually get to the shadow part, and
then tell them "remember this person."
Koren Wake
dancer, caller, musician
Seattle WA
On Tue, Feb 20, 2024 at 2:47 PM Harris Lapiroff via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
I think some dancers know which way they're
expecting to progress as soon
as they line up and it makes them think they've gotten something wrong
during the walkthrough if they progress the "wrong" way.
I find it's helpful for dancers like that to be prepared, since they're
often your first line of defense in helping guide confused dancers on the
floor, so I'll usually throw in a quick "this dance is becket *right*, for
those who know what that means" (or "for those who care" if I'm
feeling
cheekier).
Harris Lapiroff
Dance Caller and Organizer
Boston Intergenerational Dance Advocates Board (Cambridge MA)
Pinewoods Camp, Inc Board (Plymouth MA)
https://chromamine.com/contra/
On Tue, Feb 20, 2024, at 5:14 PM, Ken Panton via Contra Callers wrote:
).
contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
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- There was some confusion about shadows, but it
really doesn't matter
who that is, so I ignored/squashed questions about direction and just
let the dancers muddle into it.
Does "questions about direction" refer to the often quite "robust"
demand to know if a Becket dance progresses CW or CCW? It's always
puzzled me why that's so important to some people, perhaps because I've
never intuited any value, as a dancer, in knowing.
It's not a burning question, but does anyone have a good answer to
that? Even my understanding of end effects hasn't been enhanced, to my
recollection, knowing a priori the progression direction.
Cheers
Ken Panton
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