Thanks, everyone, for your great suggestions!! I checked out 3 options and

Personally, I’ve fallen in love with Cary Ravitz’s Micro Robot Dance animator:

Things I love about it:

—You can tell which way the dancers are facing (they sort of have beaks).

—One pair of dancers is highlighted so you can tell when partners separate (e.g., into other minor sets) then come back together.

—You can control the speed of the animation (so when I want to get the highlighted dancers to the ends to study end effects I don’t have to wait so long, and then once they get there I can slow them down to watch closely.)

It uses a text-box to enter the commands/moves so the text has to be exactly right. Cary suggested I find dances that are already in the data bank and copy & paste the appropriate commands from there to avoid typos. My last computer coding class was in the 1970s (BASIC) so that is totally my speed anyway. :-)

I suspect if I use it a lot I’ll get to the point where I can just type in the commands (Cary seems to be able to do it instantly!)

To give you an idea what it looks like, below is the dance I wanted to animate, followed by the coded version Cary coded so you can plug into the text box in the “dance builder.”

Roger’s New Contra Roger Auman Becket-L

A1. 8 Ravens chain across

8 Circle Left 3 places and pass through (pass partner by R shoulder)

A2. 8 Star Left 3 places with shadow

8 Right diagonal ravens chain to partner

B1. 16 Hey across (full hey--ravens start passing right shoulders)

B2. 4,12 Partner balance & swing

to watch robots dance it:

go to https://www.dance.ravitz.us/mrd.php

and put this in text box:

Roger's New Contra - Roger Auman

becket

chain

circlepassthrough

starleft.75

chainright

heypassright

balanceandswing

Watching the robots for a while I was able to see these end effects which will be useful when teaching the dance:

End effects (checked on dance.ravitz.us/red.php Micro Robot Dance animator)

When booted out separate from your partner, wait on Right side for the (almost immediate) diagonal chain back to them.

When booted out again with your partner, wait improper ½ the dance and you’re back in on the shadow star.

For last little pause: As in all Becket dances, if you’re on the side with your partner and no one is there for the move, do nothing. You’re right back in on next move (the hey).

Watching the end effects also allowed me to see which 3 moments in the dance the folks who are out will need a prompt to know how to get back in (diagonal chain, shadow star, and hey) so I will call those moves longer than the others to avoid confusion at the ends of the lines.

THANK YOU CARY for this amazing resource!!!!

Becky Liddle (Toronto)