Re: [Callers] Seeking contras for a crowded hall

Paul, Thanks for mentioning mescolanzas (a/k/a 4-face-4 or Portland Fancy formation dances). I'll try to pick out a couple where the figures aren't expansive lengthwise and have them ready for possible use depending on how I see the dancers fitting into the available space. I'll make a couple comments on space requirements of 4-face-4 dances below. Meanwhile I hope people will keep contributing other ideas (both general suggestions and specific dances) for contra dances in crowded halls. * * * * * * * * * * I think people often misjudge the space requirements for 4-face-4 dances, both in term of width and length. I've sometimes seen callers combine four contra sets into two 4-face-4 sets (and leave them like that) at times when I thought that three 4-face-4 sets would have fit comfortably into the width of the hall and would have been much more comfortable than two sets in terms of length. By conrast, I once saw a caller--wisely, in my opinion--put dancers into four 4-face-4 sets at a dance weekend where, as far as I'd noticed, the best-attended sessions had never had more than five regular contra lines, and where six contra lines might have felt just a little bit crowded in width. Dancers may line up for a 4-face-4 with foursomes closer to each other than optimal, particularly if the dance includes a figure that is expansive lengthwise. Consider, for example, Al Olsen's "First Bloom" [see _Zesty Contras_ or RPDLW syllabi for 2007 and 2009], where dancers get into a temporary square and the ladies do a grand chain over and back. If foursomes start out too closely spaced, the "square" will end up having head couples close together and side couples far apart, and the chain will become awkward, both because the head ladies have to wait for the side ladies to rush to the center and because the head ladies will be uncomfortably close to dancers in the next group up or down the set during the courtesy turns. If the caller suggests, before the walk-through, that dancers stretch their sets to use the full length of the hall, and if the dancers respond half-heartedly, the caller might get better results by repeating the suggestion *after* the walk-through or, if convenient, just after walking through ladies' grand chain (or whatever figure in a particular dance is most in need of space along the set). --Jim