Re: [Callers] What makes a program varied, how important is that

I think "ladies chain" can easily be overused. When I've done dances where the gents chain, and when I've done "ladies" chain while dancing the lady's role, I've not infrequently experienced awkward courtesy turns (or reverse courtesy turns in the case where gents chain by left hands) and awkward twirls. Of course some of this may be because I have much less experience being led in either courtesy turns or twirls than I have dancing the gent's role in "ladies chain". And some of it could be because many women aren't used to leading courtesy turns or twirls (in the case of gents chain) or because many men aren't used to receiving another man in a courtesy turn. Nonetheless, the experience leads me to suspect that even with everyone dancing their traditional role (or whatever role they most commonly dance), "ladies chain" is not always skilfully led. It also leads me to guess that over use of "ladies chain" in a program will typically be noticed sooner by the women than by the men. * * * * * * * * * * * * In many communities today, it's expected that most contras will have both a partner swing (for everyone, not just the 1s), and a neighbor swing. While there are some exceptions, most commonly both these swings happen on the sides of the set. This means the typical dance sequence needs to include at least *two* actions that move either the men only or the women only across the set--one to get dancers onto the same side as their partners (if it's an improper dance) or their neighbors (if it's a Becket dance) and another to get everyone back to their starting side. This includes the possibility of, for example, swapping sides for the men by using a move the swaps sides for everyone (e.g., right and left through) followed by a move that swaps sides only for the women (e.g., women chain). Among the most common ways to move either men or women, but not both, across the set are: * Circle left 3/4 * Gents or ladies allemande 1 1/2 * Women chain I think each of these is easy to overuse in a program, and it's likely to be particularly noticeable if longer sequences incorporating these actions get used multiple times, such as * Swing partner or neighbor; circle left 3/4; swing the other one * Swing partner or neighbor; men allemande L 1 1/2; swing the other one * Women chain; star left (to meet new neighbors) Of course, people have written lots of dances with such "semi- distinctive sequences" (as Larry Jennings referred to them) because they have good flow and dancers like them if they're not overused. Here are some other ways of getting only the men or only the women to change sides of the set: * Star 3/4 (or 1 1/4) * Petronella spin once (For exampe, "Cure for the Claps" by Bob Isaacs uses one Petronella spin to move men across the set for the partner swing and another to move womwn across the set for the neighbor swing.) * Ricochet hey * 3/4 hey * Give-and-take * Single file promenade around foursome 3/4 (as in "Pedal Pushers" by Bob Dalsemer) * Rory O'More spin from waves of four, but original end dancers continue past each other * Men or women do-si-do (or gypsy) 1 1/2 * Men or women do a same-sex swing in the middle, ending opposite starting side * Men or women simply allemande 1/2 or pull by or pass by L or R shoulders (The last could be a weave across the set after, say, a swing to allemande, or it could be a diagonal swap, for example following a ring balance and ending again in a ring.) * As couples, veer L past current neighbors, then start to veer R past next neighbors until men have left shoulders adjacent * Men or women allemande 1x while others "orbit" 1/2 Of course, this list isn't exhaustive. Some of these are sufficiently distinctive that a caller might hesitate to use a particular one even twice in one evening, except perhaps if the first use were meant to introduce the figure so that it could later be used in an unusual way or in a no-walk-through medley. * * * * * * * * * * * * What constitutes excessive, or unusually frequent, use of a figure or combination of figures depends on dancer expectations. For at least the past couple decades, typical contra programs in many communities have catered to dancers who like to have a partner swing in almost every dance and a neighbor swing in most of them. People who get disagreeably dizzy, sore, or tired from that much swinging will either find a way to get their partners and/or neighbors to minimize the swinging or else they'll gravitate to some other activity than contra dancing. In these communities, six dances in a row with a partner swing are less likely to make dancers grumble than two or three dances (or maybe even one in the second half of an evening) without one--as I'm sure "Mac" McKeever well knew when he asked his recent question. Forty or more years ago, a large fraction of contras--perhaps even most--had active couples go down the center and back and cast off, followed by something like "women chain over and back" or "right and left over and back" or "half promenade across; right and left back". In many communities today, calling several dances like that in an evening would raise eyebrows. Nowadays, I don't think a program would be considered unusually repetitious for including, say, a dance with a whole hey and three with half heys in the course of an evening, at least if there were a variety of different figures before and after the heys. Back when heys (or half heys) were a relatively new thing in contra choreography, it might have been considered quite odd. --Jim On Mar 25, 2012, at 8:58 PM, Rickey Holt wrote: