Re: [Callers] Great dances for learning how to dance with ghosts?

On Apr 11, 2018, at 5:18 AM, Tom Hinds <twhinds(a)earthlink.net> wrote: I didn't give an explicit example in my 2014 message https://www.mail-archive.com/callers@lists.sharedweight.net/msg07945.html but I did go into more detail about the general pattern than in my recent posting. And I fear that as a result some people glanced at my message, decided it was too long, and didn't read it. (TL;DR = "too long; didn't read".) In our current thread, Yoyo pointed out that "The Hobbit" is an example, and he identified the three different points where neutral dancers reenter the set. A simpler example is "Lisa's Contra", mentioned earlier in this thread by Mark Hillegonds. Here, with a little reformatting, is how Mark notated it: Lisa’s Contra by Tom Hinds Contra/Improper/Int A1 ----------- (16) Neighbor B & S A2 ----------- (4,4) Pass thru to a wave, Wave balance (2,4,2) Walk forward to person in next wave (don't take hands), Gypsy R 1/2, Walk back to re-form original wave, but facing opposite direction (N in RH, Gents LH) B1 ----------- (4,4) Wave balance, Gents alle L 1/2 (8) Partner swing B2 ----------- (6,2) Circle L 3/4, Pass thru up and down (8) Next Neighbor do si do [For Tom's original notation and notes, see page 15 of his book _Bad Hair Decade_.] This dance includes just one out-of-minor-set action: In the A2 part, you briefly leave your current neighbors to gypsy (or "walk around" or whatever you want to call it) with your previous neighbor. The result is that when you get to the top or bottom of the line, you experience THREE pairs of transitions out and back in, as follows: * In B2 of some round of the dance, you pass through up or down and the here's no new neighbor to dance with. [So this is the first time you go out.] * In A2 of the next round, you briefly come back in [for the first time] to g**** your previous neighbor. * Then you immediately go back out [for the second time]. * In B2, a new neighbor approaches and you come in [2nd time] starting with the do-si-do. * In A2 of the next round, you step forward from your wave and there's no old neighbor coming toward you along the line. [You've just gone out for the third time.] You could dance around a "ghost" or you could treat your partner (across the set) as a neighbor. * Then you return to a new wave with the neighbors you just briefly left. [That's the third time you come back in. You now remain in until you get to the other end of the set or the music stops.] I could give other examples, but really all you need to do is pick almost any dance where you go out of your minor set (to dance with a previous neighbor, future neighbor, or shadow) and then return. If you analyze the end effects carefully, you'll usually find that dancers go out (become neutral) and come back in at least three times. It's actually harder to find examples where they go out and come back in exactly twice. Often, the thing to do in order to come back in in the right position is so obvious to experienced contra dancers that we hardly notice there's a decision to be made. We just do the obvious/habitual thing and it turns out to be right. I think that's part of the reason that the commonness of the (out-in)x3 pattern could go unnoticed for so long by so many people. I don't know of anyone who wrote about it before I noticed it in 2013 (if anyone does, please tell me). And by then I must have experienced it myself hundreds of times, if not a thousand or more in 30+ years of dancing, without really noticing. --Jim