26 Jun
2013
26 Jun
'13
8:05 p.m.
As far as telling newcomers to ask experienced dancers to dance vs
asking experienced dancers to ask newcomers, I think both are good
things to do. And, as implied (and possibly stated), it can be good to
train stakeholders in how to dance with newcomers. That is:
Instead of co-opting the teaching duties, Ask the Caller!
Use example, pointing, gesturing, and small verbal cues to teach.
Demonstrate listening to the caller!
etc.
Getting stakeholders to ask newcomers to dance does not need to be done
publicly, thus an announcement to newcomers to ask experienced dancers
might be all that's said, if stakeholders are already on board.
~erik hoffman
oakland, ca
On 6/26/2013 10:37 AM, Donald Perley wrote:
On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 1:16 PM, JoLaine
Jones-Pokorney
<jolaine(a)gmail.com> wrote:
As far as telling the newbies to find experienced
partners vs telling the
experienced dancers to find newbies - I still stand by my original premise
that we put the responsibility on the experienced dancers. If I have to
weigh the very subtle message "these dancers have to be told to dance with
me" against the overt message "you're on your own here new dancer and its
up to you to figure out who is an experienced dancer and who isn't, and
even though you've already stretched your comfort zone by making an effort
to do something new in a room full of strangers, I'm going to make you
stretch it even more by telling you to walk up to these strangers and ask
them to dance with you."
If you don't at least express the advantage of
starting with an
experienced partner, the newbies will tend to (and may anyway) just
dance with the one what brung 'em, often as a group so they don't even
have experienced neighbors for a few rounds.
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