14 Aug
2013
14 Aug
'13
6:14 p.m.
On 8/13/2013 8:43 PM, Greg McKenzie wrote:
If the hall is integrated the first-timers will have
either a partner who
will put them on the correct side, or they will be surrounded by couples
modeling the correct behavior. If I need to give out this sort of
information I consider it to be a sign that I have failed to integrate the
hall sufficiently.
Greg, if there are two experienced dancers who just happen to want to
dance together, do you go up to them and make them dance with someone
else? From the stage, how can you tell that all of the new dancers are
"correctly" paired off. What about the new folks who get scooped up by
the not-so-experienced experienced dancer, over and over? How about
when the experienced dancers are outnumbered by new dancers? At what
point in the evening can folks just dance with whoever they want to
dance with? I appreciate your concept but it seems to be leaving the
real world out of the equation.
I would love to hear other ideas about how callers and
organizers can
encourage and foster a "wonderful dance community."
This is an excellent goal, and should always be part of our planning as
callers and dance organizers. BUT, and it's a big but, I don't think we
can assume that we live in the best (i.e. most perfectly integrated) of
all possible worlds. By all means encourage the existing members to the
dance community to take good care of our newer dancers, and to be good
role models, but also offer the newcomers some basic skills ahead of
time so that they have a bit of a clue about what to expect.
Kalia