4 Nov
2025
4 Nov
'25
4:05 p.m.
How many dancers are you going be fitting into the space? I remember a
time some years ago when we danced in a smaller venue than our usual and
had a good turnout. The visiting caller urged us to take turns sitting
out. We responded by squeezing every last one of us onto the floor and
dancing compactly.
I would suggest that contras are tighter than squares. The two lines of
a contra set do not have to be very far apart from each other. On the
other hand, squares have that big empty space in the middle. If you do
call squares, avoid dances where there is action outside the square's
boundaries, such as #1 couple split #3 and come back to place by walking
behind the #2 and #4. Very alert 2's and 4's will know to step in to
make room and shorten the return path, but I find that's rare.
If the number of dancers is well-matched, you can make a single contra
line on the diagonal. That can avoid have two lines that are too short.
You could look at triplets to maximize space usage.
-Dave
On 11/4/2025 3:35 PM, Angela DeCarlis via Contra Callers wrote:
Hello again all!
Thank you to those who've already shared their favorite barn and
ceilidh dances with me! I'm having trouble searching the Shared Weight
archives, so apologies if this has been asked before.
After discovering that the space allotted to my dance event
this Sunday is fairly small, I'm now looking for dances in
space-efficient formations.
The dance floor is about 10 paces wide and deep, so about the right
size for four 8-person squares. It's not a great size for longways
sets, so I'm thinking scatter mixers and concentric circles might be
good — maybe some triplets?? "Squares" four more than 8, Like Monkey
in the Middle?
What miniature dances do you brilliant people have up your sleeves? 🙂
Ang
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