Re: [Callers] Three Couples or Less Dances

On 3/3/2014 7:06 PM, Aahz Maruch wrote: I've been looking at this thread as someone who calls English and one-night-stand dances and tried for some years to get English ceilidh dancing going in the Bay Area. If you're willing to do things that aren't recognizable as contra dances, there are hundreds and hundreds of small-set dances. There are tens of Scottish dances easier than Postie's Jig, there are cheerful squares in the English/British country tradition (Cumberland Square 8 is my frequent go to, but there's Goathland Square), zillions of two-couple and three-couple sets, etc. Most of them call for fairly specific tunes or types of tunes. My "what if hardly anybody turns up" list of gotos for English dances include: 2-cpl -------------- Rufty-Tufty Hit and Miss Heartsease (but only if you've done the others first) Handel With Care Three-Couple ------------------- Black Nag (yes, there's a hey, but you can either just teach it or live with it.) Upon A Summer's Day Trip to Tunbridge (very similar to Chorus Jig as three-couple) Come Let's Be Merry Young Widow fixup (1s have nothing to do in the last four bars so they can just go to the bottom and new 1s start. Four-Couple ------------------ Marlbrouk (Cotillion) Cumberland Square Triple Minors Scottish Style (four couple longways, each couple active twice and to the bottom) Broom, the Bonny Bonny Broom Five-Couple ---------------- Levi Jackson Rag (but with five couples you can just do duple-minor longways and be happy enough) That doesn't make a program for exclusively first-timers, but for them you can also use existing whole-set dances, make up dances, etc. -- Alan