Re: [Callers] The balance thing.

Well, I read it, with interest and delight. Thanks, Amy. Take a dance with a hey (16 full counts of steady forward motion) and swirly circles and gypsies and the like, all flow, and I might suggest one of those Irish reels that some musicians love to play, wild chord progressions under a melody that weaves its way along a sinuous track. But if it's a dance with lots of lines F&B, circle left and right, RH star, LH star, four in line down the center (you all DO remember that figure, don't you? it's becoming an endangered species out there on the dance floor, I fear), balance the wave and slide, and even that most-popular hot move these days, the balance and Petronella twirl-- use that same lilting Irish tune (or its hauntingingly beautiful cousin) and you've got a tune working at odds with the choreography. You can dance it, but the music surely ain't telling you what to do. The dancers balances are a percussive punctuation, but the music is trying to keep moving on. One of the reasons why I like French-Canadian tunes so much is that there are so many of them that fall nicely into four bar / eight-beat phrases and those fit many of the dances I call, especially at events where there are larger proportions of less-experienced dancers. Flow is all very fine when you know what you're doing and where you're flowing, but beginners are held safe by figures where there's more hand contact (think circles, lines, stars) and less moving about by yourself (think gypsies, do-si-do, hey) and don't get me started about hey-for-four-on-the-left-diagonal when there are lots of people on the floor who are still sorting out up and down, top of the hall and bottom of the hall... So, in such situations, I like dances with a smaller vocabulary of figures that recur as the evening progresses, with additions coming into the mix as the evening goes along and they are surer. And those Quebecois tunes help the progress along quite nicely, thank you. Plus they're so darned upbeat and cheerful that the music alone brings a smile to everyone's face. David Millstone Lebanon, NH