29 Jun
2013
29 Jun
'13
8:37 a.m.
On Sat, 29 Jun 2013 01:33:45 -0400, Jack Mitchell wrote:
My goal in the workshop would be to give people tools
that they can
use to make sense of at least a large subset of dances with
challenging end effects by trying to come up with the smallest
number of general categories of end effects / coping skills
possible, and avoiding having to give specific instructions for
that dance -- the first time you go out wait out with the lady on
the left, then wait out on the right diagonal, and such as that.
While I strongly doubt that I can cover every possible type of end
effect, I think that it should be possible to cover some general
categories of end effect and to give folks some structure for
dealing with them. I would really like to help the dancers find
the patterns so that they can better cope with end effects when
they come along...
I've also started planning a workshop on End effects, and I totally
agree with what Jack is proposing - general rules rather than
specific advice for each dance. My first general rule is to stay
awake at the end and go where you are needed - assume that the people
who are still moving are in the right place and you're not.
A very common end effect which no-one has yet mentioned is that
standing out for one turn of the dance is enough to reboot many
people's operating systems - it's suddenly a totally unknown dance!
This is understandable in "Mr Beveridge's Maggot" where the ones and
twos do dramatically different moves, but not in most modern American
contras where the ones and twos do exactly the same thing.
On Fri, 28 Jun 2013 21:42:08 -0700 (PDT), Michael Fuerst wrote:
Dances with challenging end effects have such because
of the
interesting stuff within the dances. Dancers will not be
enlightened by the end effects.
I'll be doing some of Michael's dances in the session, since he
specialises in odd end effects, but I don't agree with what he says
above - I've danced at least one of his where I thought "This is
perfectly straightforward" and then got to the end and been totally
lost! I think dealing with end effects is a skill which needs to be
taught, just like contra corners.
I'll post a link to my notes when they're ready (though it may not be
this year) and ask for further comments.
Colin Hume
Email colin(a)colinhume.com Web site http://www.colinhume.com