[Callers] Re: Caller nightmare

Fun story from the category of no-notes, no music, 350 participants and dancing where and with whom you'd least expect: Last summer Ellen and I were implored to throw not one but two "American" dance sessions at a European monastery (not named to preserve their privacy). We didn't have any dance notes with us and no internet service; their piano needed repair and my travel keyboard didn't cut it; but we had a couple hours to prepare. We recreated some all-and-everyone dances that we vaguely remembered and re-invented a couple more to put together a program of four or five dances. I managed to find some music on my tablet that had 64-beat phrases at a good tempo and they had a really nice PA. We went on to throw two dances with about 350 participants of all ages including monastics. This will likely remain the most memorable and inspiring dance experience of my life. At any rate, what we do for our usual two dance series: For musicians: Linda Henry, one of the mentors of the series we started, taught us that a well-prepared band leader has two easy-to-call dances up their sleeve in case the caller is delayed. In our case I have three: a scatter mixer (we have a few variations), a simple "nice to see you again" circle dance that we made up, and La Bastringue. This relies heavily on the band being capable of carrying a dance without a caller to guide the flow. There are a few scatter mixers in the on-line databases. I recall Rick Mohr wrote one of them. For callers: in case the band isn't ready, we have go-to square tunes that we play from iTunes, YouTube, etc. We've used recordings from Great Bear, Elixir, Talking Heads and Earth Wind and Fire. At John C. Campbell Folk School's Dance Musician's Week, Andy Davis, of New England Dancing Masters and one of our instructors, told this instructional story from his experience: His band was booked for a dance. Fewer dancers than expected showed up. The caller pulled out a set of spoons and asked the band to join the dancers. The caller called and played the spoons. Andy said it was a great time. (I don't recall him saying who the caller was or if the caller played spoons the whole evening.) Rob - - - - - - - - - - - - Robert Matson Innovation Media Corp. The Innovation Works, Inc. Cell: (917) 626-2675 On Tue, Jan 21, 2025 at 12:37 PM sdgola--- via Contra Callers < contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote: