Thanks so much for all the suggestions and discussion everyone! I picked up
some great tips.
Taco
On Wed, Apr 16, 2025 at 11:04 AM David Kirchner via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
From: Taco van Ieperen <tacovan(a)gmail.com>
To: contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
Related, I find the most annoying figures to call are 1.5 figures.
There's just no way to say
"New Neighbor Allemande Left Once and a Half" in four beats. Also,
beginners struggle parsing 1.5x as trading places, especially across the
set.
There are lots of other thoughts on this thread about your other
questions, but I will jump in on this specific one. Bear in mind here that
you are talking about two different things (1) what move the dancers have
to start at the top of the phrase, and (2) where they have to end up when
they are done with that move. Those two pieces of information do not have
to be presented in the same call, and in fact it may be easier for newer
dancers to sort things out if you separate the two. For example:
5 NEW
6 NEIGH-bor
7 LEFT
8 alle-MANDE
1 go ONCE and a
2 HALF to
3 TRADE
4 PLA-ces
5 ROB-ins
6 to the MIDdle
7 for a RIGHT-hand
8 CHAIN
1 do a COURTesy
2 TURN and
3 FACE
4 acROSS
etc.
Now, I am sometimes more pattery in my calling and use more words than
others might. Put in whatever words work for you, and obviously you can
reduce the number of calls as the dancers become more comfortable with the
figure. But the point is that there is no need to tell the dancers how many
times they have to allemande before they start. They need to know where to
go and what move to start doing. You have time to add the additional
information later.
David
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