29 Apr
2010
29 Apr
'10
8:45 p.m.
wow, alot of good stuff here. We in Buffalo have been struggling with much
the same thing as everywhere else it seems. We have been having records
number of dancers (for our area). Last week was 72 dancers! Unfortunately
they are mostly middle aged women. Our difficulty is attracting high school
and young adult dancers in a city with a large number of colleges. The
usual plan is to offer a "get in free" card usable at the first-time
dancer's second visit to our dance, $5 student admission and anyone under 12
or anyone who "listens" gets in free or for a donation. The "get in
free"
cards are working well. The premise is that on the first night they know
they are coming to something they've not tried before and they are expecting
to pay so we have not only them but their badly needed dollars. If they
choose to return the free entry is our thank you. Our dance opens at 7:30
with contra basics or brush ups. Our fledgling callers lead this time and
it helps us develop our teaching skills and helps make the new dancers feel
welcome and somewhat skilled before that first dance.
We also have been having door prize drawings for those folks that bring a
guest. These are nothing really special, just what I feel i can afford to
donate to the cause. Sometimes it's a bumper sticker, sometimes a $1 movie,
or a plant or basket of goodies, homemade jam whatever. People seem to like
this and our dance attendance has been up from 30 -40 to the 50's to 70's so
something is working. we are toying with "date night" to try to encourage
bringing more men to the dance. One of our dancers is a college student
with ties to the local Native American club on campus. We are working with
her to host a dance on campus and feature some NA dances at the break.
One other unique thing to Buffalo is our waltz. We love to waltz and don't
get enough of it so we offer 4 at each dance, if the bands can accomodate.
Sometimes an extra polka or schottische but not many of our dancers do those
or hombo.
Actually, I'm not really sure how much any of the above help but our #'s are
up and that's the bottom line. Now if we can just get the youngsters...I'll
dance off into the sunset a happy organizer!
Mary Collins
Queen City Contra Dancers (Buffalo, NY)
On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 4:16 PM, Delia Clark <deliaclark8(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks for all the input on walk-throughs -- lots to
think about!
I know that this is slightly off-topic, but I wanted to share a different
angle on recruiting new dancers -- the slow way! We started a monthly dance
a few years ago. As our principal goal as an organizing group was to build
community, right from the first dance we made it VERY family-friendly:
- we offer a local-foods vegetarian dinner as part of the price of
admission (soup, bread, cheese, prepared by rotating local volunteers, often
with ingredients from different folks' gardens, root cellars, etc)
- we built the schedule around families: dinner served any time from
530-7:30, family dance from 6-7:30, dessert potluck and break 7:30-8, contra
dance 8-10:30
- during the break we sometimes feature local kids performing traditional
music, or a jam
- we charge $8 for the evening (dinner and/or dances, whenever you
arrive), but kids and teens (18 and under) are free
- we have a local business sponsor (compost and recycling company) who
sponsors the cost of the hall and some of the PR
- we have worked hard to be cool for area high school students, using
whatever connections we can
- we send out little poetic reminders each month, and have benefitted from
a very supportive local press
On the plus side, this strategy has resulted in strong consistent
participation in our family dance, with many of the high school students
going on to play in their own bands and dance regularly in their new college
towns (including two who are doing a trad music tour of Ireland as I write!)
We have found that our dance is particularly appealing to Waldorf School
families and home-schoolers, but we have also enjoyed strong participation
from families of the small public schools in our rural region. We have
recently been asked to join our local sustainability initiative, as an
example of using the arts to build community sustainability. I feel really
great about the new dancers I believe we are churning out into the world and
I hope that many of you find it easy to recruit them to your dances!
On the challenge side, we have had a harder time building momentum with the
contra dance part of our evening, though I have to say, we have always had
enough folks for a fun dance. With the mixture of new dancers, lingering
families, high school age folks, we haven't been able to provide the kind of
scene dance gypsies seem to prefer, but we have had some very kind and
generous experienced dancers frequent our dance and they seem to enjoy the
challenge of keeping it all moving. I have considered booting the kids out
during the break when we switch to contra dances, but many of them are
becoming good enough dancers that it just doesn't feel right, though I am
aware that this shifts our dynamic away from appealing to singles, etc.
Instead, our committee has made a big push to pull in people who don't
think of themselves as dancers, ex the sustainability crowd, or the church
choir crowd, and so far that's keeping the lines pretty full.
Delia
<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>
Delia Clark
PO Box 45
Taftsville, VT 05073
802-457-2075
deliaclark8(a)gmail.com
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