[Callers] Interpretation of Style/Technique

Hey Everyone!!! After another amazing and wonderfull contra dance at the Nelson Town Hall, in Nelson, New Hampshire, I just wanted to share a couple interpretations/thoughts about calling. Every Monday Night, I usually call about two or three dances (In Nelson, it is always open microphone for callers and musicians), and last night, I decided to call a couple of my favorite dances: "You Can't Get There From Here" by Carol Ormand and "Trip To Lamberville" by Steve Zakon-Anderson. For me these dances are really fund to call and dance, with great driving balances and beats. The more and more I continue to call the more and more I learn about about calling and dancing. After only six months of calling, I feel very confident and strong as a caller, but after last night, I really feel like I am starting to find myself as a caller, starting to find myself as an individual caller, with an individual style and individual technique. As a caller, I think perhaps one of the most important parts of calling is being yourself, being yourself as a caller. After spending time thinking about different callers, thinking about his or her style, his or her technique, perhaps one things that seems so simple now, but did not seem so simple before, was that every caller had a different style and technique... I have learned that you can't be a "Peter Amidon", a "Lisa Greenleaf", a "Beth Milaro", a "Don Primrose", a "Lisa Sieverts", a "Steve Zakon-Anderson", and the list goes on... Each one of these callers is very different from eachother, and that it is just not enought to observe, to learn, to apply a style and technique of one of these callers, but to apply a style and technique and to allow it to evolve your own style and technique. Instead of doing that thing Peter Amindon does or doing that thing Lisa Greenleaf does, allow that thing to evolve your own style and technique, to evolve yourself as a caller, in other words it is about finding yourself as a caller... It seems like I am constantly thinking about contra calling and dancing, different ways to call a certain call, the timing in between a call, the transition from one call to the next, and how that is going to change from the first time through to the second time to the third time. Going back to "finding yourself as a caller" another thing that I believe that is important, that I have worked very hard at, is feeling comfortable on stage. I remember the very first time on stage calling a dance, I was very nervous and very scared, and I decided to call "The Cookie Man" by Sue Rosen. Since then, I really feel like I have found my groove on stage, perhaps my calling is not always right on, but I feel confortable, relaxed, and perhaps most importantly, I am having fun, a lot of fun. I guess really all this stuff above comes down to a couple simple things: find and be yourself as a caller and have fun... So there you, just some thoughts I thought I wold share... Sincerely, Jeff Petrovitch Jeffrey M. Petrovitch jeffrey.m.petrovitch(a)usa.net "Five nights of contra dancing... through 'top-notch' style and technique, with the love and passion for the dance, the title above all others was awarded. I am an 'Iron Dancer'." - J.M. Petrovitch