26 Jan
2009
26 Jan
'09
3:22 p.m.
Rather than doing extra walk thrus, I've even just had the group do a
couple of extra progressions to break up clumps of new dancers....1
walk thru....coupla extra progressions....2nd walk through and then
dance.
J
At 03:06 PM 1/26/2009, you wrote:
I have seen something similar and have been taught this by my
mentors...do
the walk through several times so as to move those beginners into
different
groups of 4 and/or ask one group of 4 to move to a different line
"to
balance the sets". This way you move them around but without drawing
attention to their inexperience and getting them into a better
position to
learn the movements with more experienced dancers.
On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 1:25 PM, Jerome Grisanti
<jerome.grisanti(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:
I recently had the following exchange on a different
list with
Michael
Shapiro (guitarist with U4):
Michael wrote:
>>> U4 just played the SwingShift weekend in Lexington/Berea. The
caller
was
Barbara Groh. She did something that I think most callers should
do, but I
haven't seen before. After the sets were formed
and people had
done the
hand
four, she then broke up the beginners sets that had formed at the
end of
the
lines. She asked then to move forward and intersperse themselves
with the
more advanced dancers (so that they were more toward
the beggining
of the
line and the foursomes were not all beginners).
She was also good at letting the music be heard ...
I wrote:
>> Regarding the caller asking sets to reform in order to spread
the
less
experienced dancers throughout the hall, much tact is
required.
Generally,
callers strive to avoid calling attention to
particular dancers
other than
when asking people to watch a demonstration, but
asking people to
change
sets can have the effect of making them feel like
there is
attention on
them. In addition, newish dancers want to dance with
people they
know, even
if those friends may also be newish dancers.
>> Speaking to the entire crowd, I do encourage experienced
dancers to
share
their experience by asking someone they've never met to dance at
least
once
in the evening, and praise the community for being so
welcoming to
newcomer
dancers. So while I might be thinking "let's
break up this clump
of
confusion," it would not be good to say something
that draws
attention to
"you people right here."
>> I have asked, off mic, for a set of experienced dancers to
offer to
repartner with a set of inexperienced dancers down the
line.
To this list, I ask:
I'd be interested in the wording that Barbara Groh used (which I'm
assuming
was quite gentle). I'm also guessing other callers
on this list
have
developed tactful ways to address this issue.
Thanks,
Jerome
--
Jerome Grisanti
660-528-0858
[1]http://www.jeromegrisanti.com
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