Jeff says:
I'll bite that bullet: callers generally shouldn't be calling a dolphin hey
at a regular evening dance.
And Amy says:
It always helps to read the room first. Got a bunch of beginners? Call
simpler dances, at least the first half. Explain them well. Don't call a
complicated move that will discourage them. You want them to return, right?
Baby steps, then walking, then jogging, then dolphin heys.
So I say:
Exactly right, Amy. I always have a challenging dance on tap ready to call
toward the middle of the second half of the evening. If there are too
many beginners (including our perpetual beginners) when the time comes, I
simply skip the challenging dance. If the walk-thru doesn't go well, I'm
ready with an easy replacement. But when it works our experienced dancers
love conquering a [small] challenge -- at least that's what they tell me
later.
Dale