The dance below has signs of being old-school. These days, in modern choreography, many caller state what can almost be considered universal rule: in a swing,
the Robin/Lady ends always on the right. In the old days, as recently as the mid 90s, we still did dances where swings ended as below, where the swing ends with dancers backing into their lines, facing each other.
I’ve been on a sort of personal mission to occasionally call Petronella, which modern dancers adapt too readily, and many seem to like learning about the Chestnuts
and it seems the tune, Petronella is still in the jamming lexicon. I’m starting to ask bands if they are willing to play Rory O’More, and teach what we used to call the best dances in the world for the active couples.
It seems, since callers say, “as in Petronella,” or, “as in Rory O’More,” and I look around seeing may one or often no one who has danced either of these Chestnuts
that fell out of favor. I think, at the very least, it’s good to see where these signature figures come from.
Cheers,
~Erik Hoffman
From: Jeff Kaufman via Contra Callers <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net>
Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2025 2:09 PM
To: Allison and Hunt Smith <huntandallison@gmail.com>
Cc: Contra Callers <contracallers@sharedweight.net>
Subject: [Callers] Re: Identify another dance?
I'd pretty strongly discourage a new caller from trying out that dance, regardless of name: ending a swing in the middle of the phrase is not something the dancers will be expecting, and they'll keep having issues with people swinging to
the end of the B1 when they try to drop out.
Jeff
On Tue, Jan 21, 2025 at 4:56 PM Allison and Hunt Smith via Contra Callers <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote: