Re: [Callers] Calling techno?

(And if anyone wants to refer back to this, it's up on my blog <http://contra.maiamccormick.com/blog/2019/03/31/techno-reflections/>!) On Sun, Mar 31, 2019 at 4:27 PM Maia McCormick &lt;maiamcc(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: > Thanks for the advice, all! While it's fresh in my mind, wanted to report > back and call out a few pieces of advice from this thread that were > particularly helpful (or that I ignored to my own detriment). Just my > observations--hope this is helpful to someone! > > *1. Demos are indeed hard* > I agree with everyone who warned me away from demos at a techno -- it's > dark and hard to see, and dancers just want to groove. "If you need a demo > for it, the dance is probably too hard" was a great yardstick for my > programming, thanks Chuck! > > *2. Keep calling* > Jonathan nailed it -- if the phrasing is at all hard to follow, dancers > will tend to swing too long. I definitely found myself calling more than I > would in a non-techno contra (by the end of the dances, my calls were all > one beat, but I was often still calling at least some moves). Knowing to > look out for over-long swings in particular was super helpful, thanks! > > *3. Choose easy dances* > I got cocky in the second half and programmed some stuff that was above > the level of the crowd, and had to fall back to Hey in the Barn when a > weird box circulate dance fell apart. The advice that many people gave is > super sound -- it's harder to see and harder to focus, dancers probably > just want to groove etc., and so easier dances are the way to go. > > I want to add one more thing I noticed, which is that *I as a caller > couldn't get a read on the hall because it was so dark*. If I'd been > better able to see how ropy the previous dance had been, or that a lot of > the experienced people had left at the break, I would have been better able > to adjust my program. So there's another point in favor of calling easier > dances -- not so much that they dancers can't handle it, as a rule, but > rather that you as a caller can't tell as easily whether the dancers can > handle it. > > *4. If you can, listen to the tracks in advance!* > I worked with Mark Moore (DJ Flourish) from Philly--he's great! Among > other things, he sent me his tracks in advance, which meant that I could > get extra precise with the dance/track pairing--super helpful because it's > much harder to request specific track features to go with a dance when > working with a DJ than with a band. Also, I knew how many potatoes to > expect for each track, if they were at all fake-out-y, etc. > > On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 5:17 PM Maia McCormick &lt;maiamcc(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: > >> Ah, more specific questions! >> >> - have you found on-the-floor demos doable at techno, or should I not >> even try? >> - techno no-walk-through's: do they work? >> >> On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 5:13 PM Maia McCormick &lt;maiamcc(a)gmail.com&gt; >> wrote: >> >>> Hey folks, >>> >>> I haven't called all that many techno contras, and I'm slated to do so >>> this weekend. Any tips or things to keep in mind about how techno differs >>> from your standard contra evening? (Particularly curious about anything >>> relating to dance choice and dance length.) >>> >>> Cheers, >>> Maia >>> >>