13 Jan
2025
13 Jan
'25
1:27 p.m.
Any teacher will tell you that engaging with the material leads to mastery.
It's why authentic, problem-based learning is considered better than
book-learning, and it's also why, at the very least, you were assigned
study guides or outlines or such when you were in school -- forcing you to
re-write info from the textbook, rather than just reading it.
Most of my collection is dances I collected by dancing them myself. When I
was starting out, I was in deep collection mode, and kept a little notebook
in my dance bag. I'd finish a dance, get my next partner, then scurry over
to my notebook to jot down the dance we just did before I forgot it, then
scurry back to the line before the music started. I often missed the
walk-through, but I figured, if I can't dance without a walk-through, I
have no business trying to be a caller. Then at home I'd transcribe the
scribbles onto cards. I have no doubt that that process helped me as a new
caller. I have often wondered if it's really a service to new callers when
they ask to just take a picture of my card. The teacher in me wants to take
the road of tough love and make them do the same work I did, but I usually
let them just have it because they haven't asked for that level of
mentorship.
On Sun, Jan 12, 2025 at 5:01 PM Erik Hoffman via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
From Louise Siddons:
Also, specifically in terms of programming (which someone mentioned),
there are aspects of calling where experience is a key element of the
learning process. Shortcuts will be detrimental to the caller’s experience
even if the dancers don’t notice.
From me:
This is much like late Larry Jennings’ decision to transcribe dances in
his book, *Zesty Contras* and *Give-and-Take* with abbreviations and in a
form that was not common in the time. His thinking was people using his
books would have to think about the dance they were planning to call had to
think about the dance as they re-transcribed it. I recall the challenge of
putting dances down on a card (remember those?) (and I know people still
use cards…) from *Zesty Contras* and doing just what Larry intended:
thinking a dance through as I put it down in my re-abbreviated cards.
Cheers,
~Erik Hoffman
Oakland CA
*From:* Louise Siddons via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Sent:* Sunday, January 12, 2025 12:35 PM
*To:* Shared Weight Contra Callers <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Subject:* [Callers] Re: Unifying contra dance formats with AI
AI is resource-intensive and an environmental disaster. Using it for
trivial purposes feels worse than pointless to me.
Also, specifically in terms of programming (which someone mentioned),
there are aspects of calling where experience is a key element of the
learning process. Shortcuts will be detrimental to the caller’s experience
even if the dancers don’t notice.
In the spirit of slow food, might we not consider ‘slow folk dance’ as
taking a positive, sustainable position in relation to the climate crisis?
There is no actual need to make anything related to contra dancing more
efficient.
(I’m reminded of the joke that dancing is a very complicated way of going
nowhere. Surely in some sense we embody the idea that the journey is the
destination?)
Louise.
(Winchester, UK)
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