Not necessarily.  I called a contra dance in the ceilidh tent at a UK folk festival with few if any experienced contra dancers.  I made a list of very basic figures and chose only dances with those figures in.  I think I used either only right and left throughs, or only ladies chains, but not both (can't remember which sorry!)  No work outside minor set, I preferred eight bar figures to four bar figures (over and back etc).  Lots of line of four lead down sort of dances.  Lots of the easier chestnuts.  

And I delivered the explanation of how to line up, how to know if you're a one or two, how the progression works etc, before *every* *single* *dance*.  It worked and the dancers had a great time.  

Hope it goes well!

Jen

On 24 July 2018 at 15:53, Mac Mckeever via Callers <callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

I stay away from contras unless you have a good number of experienced dancers to hold things together.  There are lots of dances that are more self correcting and don't have the complexity that progression creates.  Virginia Reel works good with beginners

Mac McKeever

On Tuesday, July 24, 2018, 9:48:59 AM CDT, Lorraine Sutton via Callers <callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

Hello All,

I am calling a 2 hour Intro to Contra dance ....at an Ontario Canada Festival. ( more a music focus than a dance focus, at this festival)

I would appreciate hearing from you as to contra dances ( lws proper & Improper) that you have found successful with very novice dancers and why you think those dances work for beginners.(I love Larry Jennings definition of easy vs complicated )

I do plan on doing some non progressive lws as well as a both a circle and a Sicilian  circle in the program mix , to get the concept of progression.

Thanks so much.

Lorraine Sutton  ( lorrainesutton7@gmail.com )

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