Re: [Callers] need (more) help with Rory O'More

Dear Alison, --- You wrote: This is very bad for me, as our dance organizer is against imbalanced dances anyway --- end of quote --- Immediate (and intemperate) reaction: tell your dance organizer to go soak her head! This is a classic case of the hot-shots dance gypsies-- the "overactive 10%"-- demanding the the programs meet their personal preferences, rather than that of the entire community. Next reaction: Just where does your dance organizer think these dances come from? Someone just sat down in 1985 and created a new dance form and called it contra dancing? We dance today and enjoy these dances because they have a long history behind them. Just as generations of dancers kept the dances alive for us to modify and enjoy today, so we have an obligation to keep the dances alive for future generations. (I'm up on a soapbox now, as you can tell, but there's no stopping me.) Sure, the everyone moving all the time dances are common, but keep in mind that an entire program of such dances in and of itself narrows the range of dancers who will become part of your dance community. The older dancers may not want to be moving all the time; the younger dancers (middle school, for example) may find all that constant motion confusing. Hard core dancers who've been at it for a while may have one or another physical ailment that requires them to slow down. There is NOTHING WRONG with including a dance in a program where, god forbid, some dancers stand around a little! (Okay, got that out of my system. Thanks for your patience...) More nuanced reaction: There is more to life (and to contra dancing) than dances where everyone is moving all the time. I would NOT recommend your proposed solution of having everyone in one center line-- that will just make that line unmanageable. There are plenty of modern dances-- More for Your Neighbor, for example, by Roger Diggle, comes to mind-- that have Rory O'More style balances for everyone. The usual solution is to have two long waves, one on each side of the set. You could do that and please your organizer's lust for motion. completely inactive for more than 32 beats! I think the only way to deal with this is to face it head on, rather than to attempt to "slip it by." You might talk about how "we all enjoy dances with so-called Rory O'More balances. Here's an opportunity to dance the original, from which the figure originates." You could highlight the key supporting role that the twos play (see the final paragraph in David Smukler's article). And you might want to built into your program, later on in the evening, a more contemporary dance with the Rory O'More balances, demonstrating how this move has been revived in new contexts. I would recommend that you have folks line up in short sets (eight couples would be ideal) so that everyone gets a chance to be an active dancer. I don't know your Memphis scene, but if you have long lines, the twos are not going to be very happy. Shorter lines will let everyone experience the thrill of the ones' role. My sense is that most dancers-- "most, " but certainly not all-- will willingly try something out of the norm. If you tried to slip an entire evening of older dances by your dancers, yes, you might be "caller non grata." Even here in New England, where the chestnuts probably are called more than any other part of the country, few of us would do an entire program of older dances, unless it was specifically advertised as such, a special event featuring classic contras. And elsewhere, where the contra tradition does not have such deep roots, it may be a harder sell, but keep in mind, we're talking one dance out of an entire evening. My (more than) 2 cents David Millstone Lebanon, NH