I'm intrigued about this virtual dance! Will share the link with my organizing committee and we will all try to check it out.  thank you for sharing :

In a possibly related vein, I had been thinking to maybe share this dance I wrote with you all, and this seems like a good opportunity - I wrote a dance that me and my partner could dance alone - maximizing playing with momentum to make up for the lack of other people.

We had a lot of fun with it so I've shared it with some of our other regular dancers who I know have someone at home they can dance with.

Enjoy! and feel free to share/ modify/ do as you like with.  I don't care about credit...

Kat Kitching, volunteer organizer and caller with Halifax Contra Dances
Halifax NS Canada

Nic & Kat’s Anniversary Dance (in the time of COVID)

Music:

-          Any standard jig or reel.

-          To ensure you start on the correct beat, it would be ideal to

start the music and then count a full 64 beats before you start dancing.

(Our contra bands give “16 beats for nothing” but standard music you find online does not do this, which is why I suggest waiting for 64.  Gives you some time to enjoy the tune!

Formation:

-          Stand facing across to your partner

THE DANCE (with detailed explanations for the walk-through)

Long Lines Fwd and Back (Actually you are just alone walking forward to your partner and back, but it’s the same move you’d normally do in long lines in a group dance.  I suggest putting your hands palm-to-palm as you meet in the middle, then giving a gentle push backwards as you walk back)

Do si do (I suggest briefly taking right hands as you walk towards each other and tugging off each other into the do-si do)

Long Lines Fwd and Back (with palm push)

2-hand Balance twice (hold hands and take two steps towards each other both veering a bit to your respective left, then two steps back, then two steps towards each other both veering to your respective right, then back.  keep holding hands in anticipation of next figure...)

-------------

Over right shoulder, take eyes (keep the hand hold from the balance for a moment and tug off into the "take eyes")  (aka Gypsy)

Turn away and walk a left-shoulder loop on your own (Turn away from your partner and walk as if you were doing “over left shoulder take eyes” with an invisible person in an invisible line behind you.)

Come back to your partner, balance and swing (16 counts).  (end facing across ready to go forward and back).

------------------------------------

The DANCE QUICK REFERENCE

Long lines forward and back (with palm pushoff) - 8 counts

Do si do (with right-hand tug) – 8 counts

Long lines forward and back (with palm pushoff) - 8 counts

2 Hand balance twice (veering left then right) – 8 counts

Over right shoulder take eyes  - 8 counts

Turn away from your partner and loop left – 8 counts

Balance and swing (end facing across) – 16 counts





Becky Liddle via Contra Callers wrote on 5/22/2020 12:50 PM:
Hello Fellow Callers!

This post has 2 purposes: to invite you all to the dance, and also to drum up interested callers who might want to donate their calling to future dances (which will be the 2nd & 4th Saturday of each month at 7:30PM Eastern time in North America). 

Our first attempt at a Zoom contra early in May went great, and we’ve decided to do this twice a month for the duration!
Our first (minimally publicized) dance hit our 100 participant Zoom limit (and 67 were still dancing at the end, so they must have been having fun!). This time we have a 500 participant limit and we’re publicizing it far and wide. 

More info and the link to join appears in announcement below. This week’s callers will be Bev Bernbaum, Drew Delaware, and me (Becky Liddle).
Hope to see you there!

Becky

Dancing in Isolation - A Virtual Contra Dance by Zoom, Saturday May 23, 2020, at 7:30PM Eastern
 
Contra dance alone or with other dancers in your household, along with dancers across the continent! We'll be dancing to recorded music (due to tech limitations) and live calling. Dancing with imaginary people ("ghosts") is challenging, so we are assuming everyone is a reasonably experienced contra dancer. There will be no beginners’ lesson. But the good news is that when you dance alone in your living room, the contra line is exactly where you imagine it, and unexpected moves become glorious new choreography! Everyone is welcome to join!
 
 
Join the Zoom meeting any time between 7:00 and 7:30PM Eastern on Saturday, but try to join by 7:20 if possible. There will be an introduction to the dance at 7:25 and dancing will begin promptly at 7:30 Eastern.

We hope to have these dances every 2nd and 4th Saturday evening until we can dance in person again. You can keep track of scheduled dances here or on the Toronto Contra Dance Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/TorontoContraDance . At our first dance we hit our 100 participant limit, but this time we can have up to 500 participants, so tell your contra dancing friends, and feel free to repost this announcement to your local contra dance websites!
 
Participation is free, but if you enjoy the dance, we ask that you make a donation (in an amount you are comfortable with) to benefit freelance artists in our music & dance community who are struggling with the loss of income due to COVID-19 shutting down all our in-person events. 
 
where you can donate to a freelance musician or caller. You are welcome to choose an artist of your choice, but the list loads in random order, so you can also simply donate to whoever is top on the list when you load the page, knowing that others will be donating to someone else, and everybody ends up getting a little help in a difficult time. Or, if you like the specific music we play at the dance, we encourage you to donate to (or buy music from) the musicians whose music we use. We will post a list of those artists to the Toronto Contra Dance Facebook page after each dance. Please come to the dance, and afterwards decide what it was worth to you, and give generously to keep the music going until we can all meet in joy on the other side of this pandemic. 
 
The dance is organized by Becky Liddle, ably assisted by Drew Delaware, with a great deal of help from other Toronto area folks. Becky happens to be president of Toronto Contra Dance, but this dance is only loosely associated with TCD. So if you have any complaints, please blame Becky or Drew, not TCD! :-)  


_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave@lists.sharedweight.net