I was calling for the Bay Area Queer Contra series last night, at their
season-opener dance in Oakland, and they are both blessed and challenged
by having a huge group of beginners at almost every dance. They're
enthusiastic and ready to have a good time, but need a lot of guidance
and fairly simple material. I was noticing last night (and I'm a newish
caller with a small stock of dances still, but working on fixing that)
that a large percentage of the easier dances all feature either long
lines forward and back, or lines of 4 down the hall, or both. This
makes it a challenge to keep variety in the program.
When you're calling for an inexperienced group, do you still try to
limit the number of LL F&B and 4-in-line dances, or do you not worry
about it so much? There are just enough experienced dancers in this
particular community that I was trying to keep the program varied for
them, while still trying to keep it really accessible to the new
dancers. Had it been a completely brand-new crowd I would have felt
fine with a lot more repetition of figures from dance to dance, to
increase the comfort and familiarity of the material. But as it was, I
was stuck in that middle place, trying to satisfy a wide range of
experience levels. The eternal challenge...
Kalia