Re: [Callers] Integrating Dancers, was "Spreading out the Inexperience"

Integrating newcomers into the dance community is a core skill for contra dance callers. It is a key metric I use to judge the skill of a caller because it is one of the most difficult tasks. Personally, I love dancing with newcomers and put significant personal energy into partnering with them, particularly in the early part of the evening. When addressing the issue of integration please consider how your tactics will affect dancers who take the initiative to integrate themselves. Mixers, for example, will thwart my efforts because I will lose the newcomer I have put effort into partnering with. Some of the more heavy-handed tactics mentioned here can have a similar effect. They can also send the implicit message that the caller feels that some experienced dancers are behaving poorly by not mixing in with newcomers. A better strategy is to assume that all of the experienced dancers will support your efforts to integrate newcomers and simply assume that all newcomers will be matched up with people who have danced at least one night of contras. The result of this assumption is that you can eliminate much of the instruction a less experienced caller will tend to use when confronted by a large percentage of newcomers. My experience is that when the experienced dancers fail to seek out and partner with newcomers it is a sign of poor calling, either by the current caller or by regular callers at the series. It is the caller's job to make sure that everyone in the hall has a good time regardless of what the dancer's skill level is, with whom they are dancing, or where they are located in the hall. If the caller is successful in doing this job, almost all of the experienced dancers will quickly learn that dancing with newcomers is as much fun as dancing with other experienced dancers. This is a big subject area. There are many subtle tactics and skills that callers can and must use to accomplish good integration. The key is to bring all of your calling skills to the task. Calling for a hall of experienced dancers is an easy gig. A mixed hall is much more demanding of your knowledge and skill. Just a thought, Greg McKenzie ******** At 01:01 PM 1/26/2009, you wrote: