On Jan 28, 2005, at 11:27 PM, The Witful Turnip wrote:
- What style of music the band plays, and whether
they'd find it
helpful to
have my program in advance of the dance and who to send it to (with the
proviso that I have the right to switch dances as required.)
I always ask the band this, as being a Northern style caller, I use
music to help me shape the evening. I like the idea of asking the
organizers, too; they
may have some interesting bit of information on the band that the
musicians
themselves may not think to tell me.
- If beckets, contra corners and double progressions are ok to call.
Why ask about beckets? A becket is just an improper dance started in a
different place.
If it's a dance that flows into its progression, it makes no difference
to the dancers.
I think calling a becket is at the discretion of the caller: are the
dancers ready for one
more piece of info (hands 4 and circle L one place, etc). So I'm not
clear why
you would ask the organizer if it's OK to call them.
Double progressions are an interesting topic. Larry Jennings dislikes
them
and way back when encouraged me to limit them to only one a night.
Obviously, if the sets are short, then it doesn't make sense to call
them, but there are some
pretty cool DoPros out there that i enjoy dancing. When Ic all them I
encourage the lines to
have an unequal number of couples so that dancers will have more
variety in neighbors
(as a dancer I can often engineer this by jumping lines).
Lisa Greenleaf
laleaf(a)verizon.net