Sunday, April 13, 2025 9:43 PM

Greg wrote:
"Be wary of teaching a figure out of the dance context. When you get to the dance, you might have missed that this dance requires a different starting or ending position from what you had taught. Anticipate this! Plan ahead - ensure you are teaching the new figure EXACTLY how it appears in the next dance, which may mean putting people into a progressed or proper position first, which may in itself be confusing."

This is such an excellent point!!

I can think of two of the first times I taught Robin's chains as a standalone figure, and flubbed it.

First time, after the demo-- in the big teaching circle I had each couple find another random couple to practice with. I set it up so that partners were standing beside each other to start, so the first chain the Robins did was extending right hand to their neighbour.

But actually in the dance, people were facing their partners to start the chain, so the first chain involved the Robins reaching right hand to their partner, and when it came time to do it in the walkthrough, people were TOTALLY thrown off by that and the whole thing imploded and we had to break up the lines and come back to the circle and work through it all again! Gack!! I had totally not anticipated their inability to translate the one situation to the other...

Second time- I was wise to that above situation-- but through sheer sloppiness I set up the demonstration with the ravens facing up and down diagonal to each other, instead of across the lines.
In my mind, since we were in the big teaching circle, there was no "orientation" implied- these were just four people doing a dance figure together in space....

And then everyone tries it in a random spot on the floor so I didn't notice that they were all setting themselves up to face up and down the hall as well.... groan...

So yeah, when we got to the walk through, and the Robins were now facing diagonally across the set to each other, instead of up-and-down as they had imagined it.... and I asked them to enact the chain they had just learned -they were once again totally stuck and couldn't handle it, yikes!! And once again I had to break the whole thing apart and go back to the beginning.

So Greg's advice is absolutely bang on.

(Greg: I notice your challenges #1 and #2 are the exact same ones I always struggled with until we switched to always dancing in Becket - have you considered it?? We are LOVING it).

Kat Kitching once again,
in Halifax

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Gregory via Contra Callers

Sunday, April 13, 2025 9:27 PM

I have a few comments for you, Taco, thanks for your question.

In teaching a new figure, whether you are doing it within the context of the dance or not, crucial information is where the dancer is going to end up. If they flub, no worries, as long as they are in the correct position to start the next figure. Always describe the end position in some fashion.

Be wary of teaching a figure out of the dance context. When you get to the dance, you might have missed that this dance requires a different starting or ending position from what you had taught. Anticipate this! Plan ahead - ensure you are teaching the new figure EXACTLY how it appears in the next dance, which may mean putting people into a progressed or proper position first, which may in itself be confusing. I always teach in the context of the dance unless I feel an out-of-dance context adds something particularly illuminating for the dancers. I have taught heys for four starting in a large circle and using hands, then paring the group down until they're in a line of 4, which has worked well. I haven't yet seen a similar benefit to teaching other figures in that manner.

Always demonstrate the figure. More information can be communicated with a visual, especially with beginner dancers.

You should always explain yourself in more detail during the walkthough and specifically identify to the group what your short form is going to be while calling. It would sound like this: "Robins only, take left hands and turn around once and a half to end in each other's place. At the end of this Left hand turn, you will have traded places with the other Robin and be with your partner on the side of the dance, ready for Partner Swing. In the dance, I'm going to call "Robins, Left to Trade for this figure."

Instead of the two options you proposed, "get better at calling" and "teach easier dances," I recommend this third option: identify exactly what is preventing you from achieving your vision and brainstorm several strategies for coping with or solving that problem. This is a collaborative approach. It means you need to solicit feedback from dancers in a meaningful way in order to understand what are the impediments, and you need to have a keen eye in observing the dancers while you call. Question like "Are people having fun?" might lead you to believe that nothing needs changing regardless of blunders or good walkthroughs. If people say "I can never figure out ...such and such..." then you've got something to work with. "Get better at calling" is an honourable goal but might be taking too much responsibility for the dancers' lack of experience or skill - I caution this for your own sense of burden and enthusaism.

The above process in my group produced several confusion points.

People forgetting to change places with their partner while out during an improper dance.

This led me to call a lot of proper contras, or dances where it didn't matter what side you were on. I've been doing that for 3 years while people have been developing their other skills and I find they have much improved. Now improper contras are easier to focus on. Coloured wrist bands have also helped.

People circling too far or not far enough (which is really bad in dances like Tom Hinds' Nothing Contra)

I avoided dances like this, but also came up with a wrist band system to help people identify who is who and what role they're dancing.

People ending up on the wrong side after a swing

Wrist bands helped, but keeping with an asymmetrical swing hold and using the "pointy hands" concept from Louise Siddons did more

Lines getting strung out and consistently advancing down the hall farther than retiring back up to place, then not knowing why their new neighbour isn't right beside them but 7 feet away up the hall.

Still working on it!!!!

Greg, from Winnipeg

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On Sunday, April 13th, 2025 at 12:01 PM, Taco van Ieperen via Contra Callers <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

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Taco van Ieperen via Contra Callers

Sunday, April 13, 2025 2:01 PM

Hi All,

I've been thinking a lot about calling for beginner dancers. I've seen big changes in the last few years where our dances now often have more than 50% newcomers.

As a relatively new caller. I have some observations and ideas, and I'd love perspective from people who are more experienced.

Walkthroughs:

With experienced dancers, you can do an efficient walkthrough and teach a figure in the context of the dance. With beginners, I've seen walkthroughs fall apart because by the time you've explained a move and dealt with the group that has gotten all scrambled, the dancers have completely forgotten where they are in the walkthrough and where they started the dance. This is leading me towards the idea of isolating new figures *before* the walkthrough: If it's the first time doing a move, teach the move first, and then do the walkthrough that includes this move. "This dance has a new figure called a Robin's Chain. It works like this.... <chain stuff>. That looks great. Now let's learn the dance...."

Also, with experienced dancers, people "get it" during the dance, so you can do two walkthroughs and even if some people are confused ii will straighten itself out. With new dancers it feels much more important that everyone succeed in the walkthroughs because confusion can get worse instead of better. But at some point you can't keep doing walkthroughs. My gut instinct is that if I teach the figures before and can't explain the dance in two walkthroughs then I need to get better at walkthroughs or teach easier dances.

Thoughts?

Caller Style:

I really like making each call four counts as it provides predictable rhythm to the calling:

1,2,3,4, WITH your | PARTner | BALance and | SWING

For some calls I can give the destination location, or the destination person:

"Robins, Chain, Across the, Set"

"Neighbor, Dosido, to NEW, Neighbor"

"Robins, Chain, To your, Partner"

"Neighbor, DoSido, Once and a, half"

To your partner seems more clear, but I can also see that having two different people in the call could create confusion. Does one format work better in your experience?

Related, I find the most annoying figures to call are 1.5 figures. There's just no way to say

"New Neighbor Allemande Left Once and a Half" in four beats. Also, beginners struggle parsing 1.5x as trading places, especially across the set.

It seems like a lot of callers drop the Allemande and just shorten it to "Left" or "Right". Which probably is fine after two clear walkthroughs.

So, which do you prefer? Do you have other ideas?

Robins, Allemande, Left, Across

Robins, Left, to Trade, places

Robins, Left, Once, and a Half

Robins, Left, to Your, Partner

Robins, Do si, do, across

Anyway, just thinking aloud and curious what other peoples thoughts are.

Taco

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