Joe,
Why can you not accept Neal’s answer of Yes to your question at face value. They answered your question. That is their experience.
We are all coming to the dance floor with our own neurologies, histories, and personalities. Yes, the dance floor is full of surprises. Some surprises are bigger than others.
Speaking now for myself, a swing in particular, empirically and not by any conscious choice of mine, is the one move I am most likely to become disoriented in in *any* circumstance where there is something different from what my decades-long installed firmware is programmed for. This is true even with my own partner in the dance! I have danced Lark for most of my life. I’m gleefully taking on the role of Robin now and then, yet despite my most sincere intentions during partnering up and walk through, I will sometimes begin and end a swing as if I’m a Lark. I do not consciously choose to make this error; that is the nature of errors. I would compare it to those clichéd times when I leave work intending to run an errand and find myself on the accustomed path to my house, my brain having followed the familiar cues once I was on the move.
Back to the dance floor. If I’m in my home foursome and anyone ends a swing on the wrong side, we at least have our partners to re-anchor to, and a pair of neighbors we have recently greeted and imprinted on, and can use those backup cues to get back to where we committed ourselves to be in the choreography. If I’m away from my minor set and end up, through involuntary error, on the wrong side of a swing, throw those cues out the window. If that swing is with the shadow I imprinted on during walkthrough - well, that’s something! On the other hand, if it’s with an unexpected shadow i am more likely to make the error *and* I have lost yet another cue to reorient myself. I am now careening among a minor set of completely unexpected people trying to find my way home again. If your mastery of improvisation is such that you can reorient yourself at will and in real time in such a situation, hoorah! I ain’t there yet.
That is my lived experience. Know that if you call a shadow swing, especially on a dance floor where role switching is likely, or where there are newer dancers who haven’t sorted out how to end swings, you have increased the real-time cognitive load on some of the dancers to the point that train wrecks are more likely.
-Joseph
Sent from my phone, which has odd ideas about formatting sometimes.
But, Neal, we handle different neighbors swinging us each cycle just fine. Why is it a big deal if our shadows change? Almost everyone knows that shadows get messed up. A rank newbie might not, but then they also barely understand the concept of a shadow anyway. Surely, if the caller says, "this should be the same person throughout the dance, but sometimes people jump in or swap roles, so it might not be. Dance with who's comin' atcha," it should be no more confusing than a neighbor swing. I don't see anyone proposing that we stop calling neighbor swings.
I get the concerns about Problem Dancers, but that's a different line of argument from the confusingness concern (dealing with that problem in and of itself, beyond the shadow swing question, belongs in its own thread, if we want to pursue it again).
Agreed that there are communities that might welcome shadow swings more than others, like shadow sessions at weekends, or relatively tight communities without a PD present, or certain dance weekends in small/tight communities.
I would be really interested in some data on this one, phrasing it as, speaking only for your own personal interests, if a caller said the next dance had a shadow swing, how would you react? A. Fine, I like swings. B. Mild concern that I'd be stuck with someone I wasn't comfortable with as my shadow. C. Quite concerned, but take no action. D. Check my shadow and possibly move during the walkthrough. E. I would not dance.
It is absolutely more disorienting.
The swing is one of very few moves (if not the only one) in which people may or may not change set position based on which role they are dancing/used to dancing and where they started the move from as a standard matter. It is also executed differently based on which role you are dancing, and may or may not be executed differently based on whether you and the other person are physically presenting as male/female/other.
Name me another figure with those variables that happens at a regular dance.
Change the people involved in any swing unexpectedly, and you’re exponentially more likely to get an unexpected result.
Neal Schlein
Librarian, MSLIS
Is it really any more disorienting to have a shadow change in a dance with a shadow swing vs., say, an allemande or another move?
Re: partners swapping during shadow dances and confusing their respective shadows (I think of it as Peter Pan-ing, on account of our shadows coming detached)… I appreciate events where there are designated chaos lines so those who are in the mood for them can indulge to their hearts’ content. I suppose there could be no-shenanigans lines alternatively. Or couples who are likely to swap could give their shadows a heads up during walk-through.
-Joseph
# 2. No problem, but rarely call
As dancer - meh...biggest issue is when there is suddenly a new shadow due to dancers joining late or some other mix. As I age I find I get disoriented when my point of reference suddenly changes. I imagine, for a new dancer who has been told this person, your shadow will/should be the same person every time, it could be confusing as well. IMHO
Mary Collins
WNY/ST (Western New York/Southern Tier)
Prompted by some recent conversations, I’m curious how folks here feel about shadow swings!
1. As a caller, do you:
A) not have an issue with shadow swings, and program them freely
B) not tend to program them just bc they don’t come up in your repertoire, but have no issue with them
C) not program shadow swings as a matter of principle
D) some secret fourth thing (feel free to elaborate!)?
2. How do you feel about shadow swings as a dancer?
Will weigh in with my thoughts later, both to avoid biasing the conversation from the outset, and also because I’m currently in transit 😅
Thanks for participating in the data gathering!
Cheers,
Maia
--Maia McCormick (she/her)
917.279.8194
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