I was greeted at the door once by Organizers telling me that the scheduled caller was a no-show.  This was 5 minutes before the start of the dance (I was attending with the expectation of being a dancer).  The money box had a few scraps of paper with dances written on them, so we started with those.  I asked a couple of dancers to sit out and use their phones to look up dance figures while I got the dance going.  The originally booked caller had forgotten, so I became the caller for the full evening.

Now I carry a couple of printed programs with me.

Sue Gola
Princeton/Mt Airy

On Tuesday, January 21, 2025 at 01:21:01 PM EST, Colin Hume via Contra Callers <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:


On Tue, 21 Jan 2025 10:11:33 -0800, Gary Shapiro via Contra Callers wrote:
> I haven't been a contra caller for many years, but last night I dreamt I was at a dance and the caller did not show
> up. There were no other callers in attendance. So I got up there wondering what dances I knew by heart. I think I
> knew how A Nice Combination went. Then I woke up and thought about it some more. I decided that every dance venue
> should keep a dance program, with instructions, somewhere.

I've been in that situation at a Festival - the caller was delayed on the motorway - and I realised I only knew two
contras by heart, neither of which was a good one to start with.  I actually had my lap-top with all my dances on it,
but it was at the other venue.  I managed to remember Bob Dalsemer's "Maggie's Hobby".  I now have some cards
for a few contras and squares in my shoulder bag along with the other vital stuff like Mars Bars and cough medicine!

And yet I can remember lots of quite complicated English dances!

Colin Hume


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