I apologize for getting the attribution wrong – – I couldn’t remember which of you wrote the dance and guessed. I memorized it years ago from a callers manual written by Don Armstrong.

Several notes about all that…

The Folk Fellowship was reconstituted and went off-grid at the request of the LSF to avoid being at odds with the Shaw Roundup. Which was a bit silly, since it was many of the same people. It was on hiatus for some span between the late 70s and the 80s, but was back by the 90s and ran until imploding (permanently?) around 2005.

It was good to see someone else mention Gib Gilbert. He started teaching me to call shortly before his death, and I still consider him my stylistic mentor; my favorite calling compliment ever was from someone in Berea who said I sounded just like him.

Also, Gib actually wrote the “mixer” I mentioned, which makes me realize it had to be in 1998 or 1999 because I hadn’t met my wife yet. I’m probably the only one who remembers dancing it.

As for Inflation Reel…it has always had a special place in my heart, and I use it often. The first time I tried to call anything was an utter disaster: the singing call Riverboat, with Calico & Boots’ occasional in-house band…except it turned out they didn’t really know the tune. The second attempt (six months later, to recorded music) was Inflation Reel. It started to go off the rails as well because I was staring at my notes until Gib intervened. His annoyed face suddenly appeared in my vision, he plucked the cue card from my hand, smacked it on the table, and growled, “Never hold cards—5, 6 and…!” I pulled the dance back together, and still follow that rule.

The incident in Tucson was extra ridiculous, because

I had actually suggested Inflation Reel to the caller for those very reasons. I was splitting an evening Intro to Contra hour with an experienced MWSD caller who loves contras but (it turned out) fundamentally did not understand teaching them or calling for beginners. He had never presented them to the local dancers, so no one had any experience at all. Unfortunately, as the “ranking” person he wanted to go first. I don’t remember what I used for the second dance, but it was pure recovery.

As for why it failed…yes it was taught and called poorly, but the MWSD world itself has also changed; the notion of a lengthy (8 count) swing is foreign to many dancers, as are fitting figures to the phrase, 8-count timing, memorizing a sequence, or interpreting calls in the absence of direct instructions. The dancers themselves have also slowed down. Inflation Reel can break at numerous points on these fronts, depending on what the caller does.

On Tue, Sep 26, 2023 at 9:12 AM Tony Parkes <tony@hands4.com> wrote:

Ah, Neal’s post stirred memories…

True, context is everything, but I was a bit surprised to read that MWSDers had trouble with Inflation Reel. I (not Don Armstrong) wrote it and Shadrack’s Delight specifically to appeal and be accessible to both trad and MWSD groups. I’ve used both dances at Intro to Contra sessions at National SD Conventions, with no trouble. Perhaps the caller at the Tucson event was relatively new to contras and/or hadn’t worked out how to present Inflation. (Note: On occasion I’ve used Inflation as a first contra with MWSD peeps, and avoided the wait at the ends by calling Trade By after the Pass Thru. [Trade By = those facing a couple Pass Thru, those facing out Partner Trade… which takes care of the cross over.])

And I have fond memories of my two summers with the Lloyd Shaw Fellowship, an invitational group that was the predecessor of the Folk Fellowship. (I didn’t realize the FF lasted into the 21st century.) John Bradford was one of several respected callers in that world, which straddled the trad square and MWSD worlds. Others were Gib Gilbert and Bob Howell.

It was Don Armstrong who got me an invitation to the Shaw Fellowship, and who made me a household name among MWSD-affiliated contra callers by publishing Inflation and Shadrack, first in Sets in Order magazine (of which he was Contra Editor) and shortly thereafter in the Contra Manual that he wrote for SIO. He recorded the calls for both dances on the Lloyd Shaw label (using music I wouldn’t have chosen, but you can’t have everything).

Tony Parkes

Billerica, Mass.

www.hands4.com

New book! Square Dance Calling: An Old Art for a New Century

(available now)

From: Neal Schlein via Contra Callers <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net>
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2023 10:51 AM
To: Jerome Grisanti <jerome.grisanti@gmail.com>
Cc: Michael Fuerst <sjapartments@gmail.com>; Shared Weight Contra Callers <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net>
Subject: [Callers] Re: Most difficult contras

I have a couple of answers that are not exactly on-topic, because the answer is contextual:

Inflation Reel by Don Armstrong when attempted at a MWSD convention in Tucson. (I was dancing.)

Anything called to the Eastern-European-style band that played in Bend, Oregon circa November of 2003. (I was calling, it was their first time playing for a dance.)

A contra written for the caller’s son’s wedding and pre-tested at the Folk Fellowship dance camp, circa 2002; it was the first time most (any?) of us had encountered an Orbit. In the camp yearbook notes it said that John Bradford had deemed the dance, “the greatest mixer ever written…although there was some question whether it was supposed to be one.” (This was a closed group and an expert caller with 50+ years experience. In my entire life, I have never seen another dance devolve like it. Couples peeled from the end and individuals were staggering out of the middle of the line because they were so disoriented, yet somehow it continued to grind on. The dance went off phrase, out of rhythm, the caller himself got lost and couldn’t maintain the sequence…in the end he didn’t even cut the music off for us; the line just fatally disintegrated all at once. )

Neal