Kalia,

You make a good point. My most successful contra for such applications has been Haste to the Wedding in a proper line.

I have had trouble with the cast at Party Dances. Do you demonstrate it? How do you describe it?

I like your suggestion of Washington Quickstep. I might try it with 1.s DSD, then 2s DSD instead of R&L Thrus.

Rich

On Sat, Mar 5, 2016 at 3:54 PM, Kalia Kliban via Callers <callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

On 3/5/2016 10:44 AM, Rich Sbardella via Callers wrote:

I rarely call a contra at a One Night Party Dance, but occasionally I am
asked to. I have a few in my cards, but can anyone make some sure fire
recommendations.

Assume 95%-100% non dancers.

Just getting to the duple minor progression can be quite a process. The simplest duple minor I've got is not technically a contra (it's an English ceilidh dance), but works well as a mine-sweeper to see whether more complex duples will work. It's called the Itchington Long Dance (Hugh Rippon, 1990). Star L/R; cnrs dosido; 1s down/bk/cast; 1s swing and look down for new Ns. If your crowd is up for it and you've got room, the B2 can be a general P swing, but I like to do it just for the 1s to make the progression clearer.

Washington Quickstep (a contra chestnut) is good too, and if the 1s lose track of who needs to be on the right after the swing, nothing terrible happens. Star R/L, 1s dn/bk/cast; R&L thru over/bk; LLFB, 1s sw.

Kalia
_______________________________________________
Callers mailing list
Callers@lists.sharedweight.net
http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/callers-sharedweight.net