We have something we call the "calling party progression" because we sometimes try out new dances with only four people present (or four + a caller).

We form one set with "Up" being "North" (for example). At the end of the dance we progress by changing "Up" to be "East." and turning to face the new direction. This swaps neighbors for partners, but everyone ends up standing in the right place (although not facing the right direction until after the turn) for the next time through the dance.

I'm not sure how well this would work with inexperienced dancers, though (and it certainly doesn't work with out-of-set dances, diagonal chains, etc.) but for a lot of dances its actually quite fun.

Dale

On Tue, Oct 4, 2016 at 2:09 PM, QuiAnn2 via Callers <callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

I recently called at a contra dance where we had exactly 6 dancers for almost the entire evening (one joined us later but only occasionally danced). This was unexpected as they usually have attendance in the 12-20 range. I was able to piece together a night of mixers, triplets, and oddball dances to make it work and the dancers were game for anything so it ended up being a fun night. But it got me thinking about what to do if only 4 dancers came to a dance (meaning even if I jumped in, we would only have 5 total dancers). In order to be better prepared for next time, I have a couple of questions.

1) Do you have any dances you can share that would work for 4 or 5 dancers? Or also dances for 6 dancers that are not triplets (have plenty of triplets). I have already collected Do-Si-3 and Haste to the Divorce, both of which I modified so that they would not progress.
2) Could a whole evening (3 hours) of dance be put together for just 4-5 dancers?
3) What preparation can be done by me in advance to help with this situation? It’s possible to talk with the organizer in advance about canceling the dance if only 4 or 5 dancers show up, however, this particular dance is a 75 minute drive one-way and I’d prefer to avoid the round trip if there won’t be enough dancers. For various reasons, any dance promoting that I do myself would be largely ineffective for this particular dance.

Would love to hear about any ideas you can share. Thanks!

Jacqui Grennan
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