[Callers] See Saw (was Re: Code's Compiling)

On Sep 10, 2013, at 9:44 AM, Sam Whited wrote: Current CALLERLAB definitions documents for various MWSD programs are linked from http://www.callerlab.org/DancePrograms/AllProgramDocuments/tabid/610/Defaul… The current Basic/Mainstream Definitions document (last revised August 7, 2012) defines the dance action of See Saw as follows: Dance action: Facing dancers walk forward and around each other keeping left shoulders adjacent. They return to their original position, facing away from each other. and includes (among other things) the following comment: Formerly See Saw, when not used after All Around the Corner, had the dance action of a Left Dosado. Today callers should say Left Dosado. The definition of "Dosado" includes a similar comment: Formerly the phrase See Saw was occasionally used to accomplish a Left Dosado. In 2003 the Mainstream Committee voted to drop that application of See Saw and requests that callers use Left Dosado. The change log at the beginning of the document includes these references to "See Saw": 9/11/03 Changed Definition of "SEE SAW" and Changed name of "ALL AROUND LEFT HAND LADY" to "ALL AROUND THE CORNER and Changed reference for ARM TURNS from the addendum to call #7 (b) and #7 (c). 10/10/03 Corrected styling statement for SEE SAW. 10/7/2011 New definition for Ladies Chain Family and See Saw [I have no idea what those last two entries are about.] So it appears from the above that CALLERLAB has officially deprecated use of "See Saw" to mean a left shoulder Dosado for ten years (as of tomorrow). I don't have a copy of the CALLERLAB Basic/Mainstream definitions from just before that time, but it seems clear that the prescribed for "See Saw" would have been (left) gypsy-like in some cases and (left) dosado-like in others. Ten years may seem like a long time to younger members of this list, and to people who first took MWSD lessons within the last ten years, it may seem like the definitions they learned describe the way things were from time immemorial. But by 2003 MWSD had already substantially diverged from "traditional" SD for forty years or so. The definition of "Grand Sashay" found here http://www.ceder.net/oldcalls/view.php4 clearly uses "See Saw" to mean a left-shoulder dosado. This 1951 film by Bob Osgood http://squaredancehistory.org/items/show/654 includes the sequence Around your left hand lady (Oh, boy! What a baby!) See saw your pretty little taw (The cutest girl you ever saw) starting at about 0:30. The styling the dancers us in the film is neither gypsy-like nor dosado-like. Instead, they all face the center of the square the whole time. In the book _American Square Dances of the West and Southwest" by Lee Owens (Pacific Books, Palo Alto, 1949), the calls "All around your Left Hand Lady" and "See-saw your pretty little Taw" are explained on pages 58-59. Owens says that in each of these figures the women face the center of the square the whole time, stepping forward, then pausing, then stepping back (note that he says nothing about the women stepping sideways) while the men dance around them. And what do you suppose he says that the men should do? dance as in a dosado around corner (Left Hand Lady) and as left dosado around partner ("Taw")? dance as in a gypsy (right shoulder around corner, left around partner)? face the center of the square the whole time. like the gents in the Bob Osgood film? Wrong! The gentlemen, Owens says, "keep their backs to the ladies [whichever one they're dancing around at the time --js] throughout." In a booklet entitled "Square Dance Figures and definitions" compiled and edited by Neil Barden (apparently published by the editor, Lebanon, NH, 1958), the definition of "See Saw Your Pretty Little Taw" has women facing the center the whole time and men keeping left shoulder to their partners. The booklet, however, also has a definition of "Grand Sashay" in which it mentions that a left shoulder do-si-do is sometimes called a "see-saw". Well that's enough ("Too much!" I imagine some of you saying, if you've even read this far) with the history lesson. I think I've amply illustrated that when you start digging into these things, the story can can get more complicated than you might have guessed. Having said all that, I'll agre with Sam that whenever I've seen or heard the term "see-saw" used in contra dancing, it has meant a left shoulder do-si-do, though of course individual dancers of might apply the same sorts of embellishment as they do with ordinary do-si-dos, including either adding one or more solo spins or turning the move into a gypsy. When I've encountered the call "see-saw" in the sorts of "traditional" squares sometimes done in conjunction with contras, it has also been synonymous to left-shoulder do-si-do, unless perhaps the caller was specifically teaching about a different historic styling. --Jim