Hi,

              I believe that the most important thing you can teach new contra dancers is how to Swing well.

              It has been estimated that, if you have an evening of modern contra dances, then you will spend THIRTY MINUTES Swinging!

              It is crucial to make sure everyone can Swing well.  And please don’t rely on the “experienced” dancers to teach the Swing; they are quite likely to pass on bad habits!

              See https://contrafusion.co.uk/SwingWorkshop.html for tutorial videos and essays on Swinging and hints & tips for teaching it.

              For beginner-heavy sessions I add in Circle Mixers, Sicilian Circles, easy Squares, Triplets and anything else to give variety (like they did in the old days, before contra dance evenings polarized into just contras).  Variety is the spice of life!  For over 100 different formations see https://contrafusion.co.uk/Formations.html!

              I also avoid Allemande 1.5.  Mainly because it is so often so badly performed, with so many dancers treating it as arm-wrestling.  There are much better ways to cross the set!

              You will find the combined wisdom of this discussion group on Allemandes at https://contrafusion.co.uk/Allemande.html .

              I personally find dances with both Partner Balance & Swing and Neighbour Balance & Swing rather tedious; add in a simple transition between the two and nearly three-quarters of the dance is just Swinging.  I love Swinging, but not at the expense of making the dance boring.

              If you are going to run dances like that, then I would recommend only running them 7 or 9 times through, then moving on to give variety.

              I hope that helps.

            Happy dancing,

                   John                      

John Sweeney, Dancer, England   john@modernjive.com 01233 625 362 & 07802 940 574

http://www.contrafusion.co.uk for Dancing in Kent