17 Jan
2013
17 Jan
'13
7:05 p.m.
You know, I just realized, regarding the "sidelines" discussion ... no
one's yet mentioned "booking ahead". In the context of
getting-new-dancers-partners, I thought it might deserve its own thread.
Simply put: Booking ahead is a big threat to including new and/or
infrequent dancers.
When I was a newer dancer, and finally getting known as a fun dance partner
with enough people, there was the inevitable "I want to dance with all my
friends!" tendency that most newer dancers get. I booked ahead, sometimes
two dances ahead. I never booked *all* of my dances for the night, and I
did seek out and dance with people I didn't normally, on a regular basis.
Still, once I reflected upon it, it limited my dance partners somewhat.
I cut down to only booking "next dance". Then I cut down the number of
times in a night that I do that. Now, I will never book ahead as a rule,
but allow exceptions, usually for out-of-towners that I don't get to see
often, or a dancer that I simply haven't had the chance to dance with for
several weeks. I've found that I don't sit out any more often, I'm still
dancing with friends for about half my dances in the evening, and I'm
having just as much fun. At the same time, I don't have to worry about
remembering who I booked, nor about offending anyone by, "Sorry, got the
next one booked already!"
Nowadays, I'm a pretty okay dancer. And there are some dances I can walk
into, and people are super-friendly and I have no problem finding a
partner. Yeah, me being a kilt-wearing, name-button-sporting dancer with
decent dance shoes usually is an extra tip-off to people, too, in the same
way that if I saw a lady walk in that I didn't know, but she was wearing a
big multi-colored twirly shirt and dance shoes, I'd probably assume she
would be a good dance partner.
But... there are dances where it's difficult to find partners if you don't
know anyone. And then for introverts (which makes up a surprisingly high
percentage of the contra dance community), it's an even more difficult
task. When a dance finishes, and you blink, and everyone's partnered and
lined up within 30 seconds ... you know it. People have to be booking
ahead.
Frankly, booking ahead can be viewed by new dancers as unfriendly behavior.
At the head of my list of dance values is that contra is meant to be a
community dance. I believe that booking ahead, more than a few times in an
evening, is contradictory to this primary value.
If I had to speculate, I would hypothesize:
1. Dance organizers are very aware of who does this at their dances,
already.
2. Dance organizers are afraid to speak up about it, because they're afraid
of scaring off their "cool, hip dancers".
3. This can't possibly be a new problem. Haven't there been good solutions
to this in the past? Haven't there been dances that have realized they're
exclusive, and wanted to change, and successfully done so? What approaches
have they taken that are successful?
4. A dance community has to *want* to change this. They need to state
"inclusion of new dancers" as a value that they hold high.
I don't have a solution, but I do think that this ought to be a priority
discussion with dance organizers and callers.
Also, I'm optimistic that even one good dancer changing their behavior, and
clearly stating *why* they stop booking ahead, can have a strong influence
on other dancers. It was a couple of other dancers stating that they
stopped booking ahead at all that made me really reconsider my own booking
ahead; when I tell people that I don't book ahead, I have had some good
discussions stem from it, and I think I may have influenced a dancer or two
in that they can tone down how often they book ahead.
In dance,
Ron
http://contradances.tumblr.com