Hi All,
Donna shared the information string with me, since I am one of the callers for Independence Squares, the club in Phila that she mentioned. In addition to calling and teaching for Independence Squares in Phila, I also call and teach for the gay/lesbian square dance club in New York City. Both groups accept gender specific terms and use the method of identifying dancers by raising a hand and saying “Boy/Girl” when the choreography makes it important for the dancers to know with whom they need to work. Personally, when calling, I have a sense of who often dances which part and that helps me keep track of where the dancers of different roles are positioned. Another help is for me to call “Boys or Girls u-turn back (turn around) which allows me to see where they are. I have the freedom to do this because I am calling MWSD with flexible choreography.
As a long time caller, I have always preferred the terms Gent and Lady, because to me they are roles that people adopt more than men/women and boy/girl. Lead/Follow is not useful in MWSD because the term “Lead” means the dancer in front, and not person dancing the “man’s” role.
Betsy Gotta
When there's a role specific move called ie, "Boys trade from a wave" the dancers in that role say "Boy" (or "Girl" if it's "girl" specific). The dancers only say it loud enough for their set to hear, the dancers don't yell it loud enough for the callers to hear. The callers usually make a note of who the couples are prior to starting the tip so they have a record of who is in which position. If they are teaching and need clarification they will ask the "boys" or "girls" to identify with a raised hand.
Our dancers don't try to identify who they are supposed to be dancing with, they dance to the definition of the call and dance with whomever is coming at them. Sometimes during class this becomes very interesting especially if someone boldly moves in the wrong direction and does a move with the wrong person. Occasionally dancers become confused and can be heard muttering, "Oh, yeah I'm supposed to be a (insert role here)."
Our group has dancers and classes from Mainstream up to C2. Check it out:
http://www.independencesquares.org/
Thanks Donna.
How do the dancers know who's dancing boy and who girl? Sometimes they need to, or do the callers avoid any calls requiring this knowledge (e.g. boys trade from a wave)?
Here in Philadelphia the MSW group (Independence Squares) is an LGBT and straight group and we dance to the calls of girl/boy and are free to dance whichever role we wish without any identifying "sashes". Our callers are fantastic at remembering who the couples/boys/girls are during any square.
Hi
This is for the MWSD callers amongst you.
There has been much discussion on this group about the terms used for the two roles in contra dance. I do not propose to resurrect that here, I mention it to emphasise that many feel the terms used to be important, and that we should be moving away from any gender connotation in them.
MWSD uses Ladies, Gents, Men, Women, Girls, Boys - all highly gendered. Is it time we changed these? If so, how? In theory with Callerlab it will be easier, but I suspect they would strongly resist such a change, since the "maleness" and "femaleness" of the roles (e.g. skirt work) is such a fundamental part of what MWSD is.
(Apologies to those to whom this is all gibberish)