Hi Cynthia! It was great to see you at the festival and call with you and dance, too! You're right, contra corners is not a figure that's often done at community dances and may even be done less in general. However, there was a significant group of beginners at the festival. People who hadn't danced before the day at the festival. My suspicion is that there was a group of them clustered in the far back - caller's right. They didn't have experienced people to lead them through it, so Linda called for a demo. As for people not squatting, I remember that as a new/intermediate dancer, I didn't understand why people were squatting. I initially thought that they were tired and taking a break. So now I assume that they either don't understand why people do it, or that they are incapable. If I am with a new dancer and people are blocking their view of the demo, I might request that they move or sit so my partner can see. A personal request "so we can see" goes down a little better than a request "so people can see". I think that this is another place where, we as callers need to model the good behavior from the floor as dancers. Chris Cynthia Phinney wrote:

i rarely call contra corners because it can be so difficult to get the timing right, even for experienced dancers. i'm far more interested in getting everybody to dance to the music, and feel happy/satisfied with what they're doing, than to execute some complicated figure. there are some great dances with contra corners, and i'll use them with the right crowd. however, it's probably been at least a year since i called a dance with contra corners. this is just my opinion - every caller has their own style! barb http://www.barbkirchner.us ----Original Message Follows---- From: "Cynthia Phinney" <cynth(a)gwi.net> Reply-To: Caller's discussion list <callers(a)sharedweight.net> To: "Callers Shared Weight" <callers(a)sharedweight.net> CC: cynth <cynth(a)gwi.net> Subject: [Callers] Less-used figures Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 20:01:55 -0500 Hello callers, I am just back from a wonderful two days at the DownEast Country Dance Festival in Maine. There was something I noticed there that I thought was worthy of note on this list. I was sitting out watching Linda Leslie do a walk-through for a dance. The dance had a contra-corners figure in it and the dancers got lost enough trying to walk it through that Linda had six couples do a demo. It struck me that fifteen years ago I don't think that would have had to be taught at an event like the Festival, because it was a figure we used (and was taught to us) so frequently in the regular Saturday night dances that the number of people attending an event like the festival who didn't know it would be low. It seemed to me to be a reflection of doing the older dances so much less often than we used to. I remarked on this to the person I was sitting with, but then realized that he is in his twenties and does not know the kinds of dances that used to fill an evening of dancing around here back in the 70s and 80s (when the majority of dances we used in an evening might well have been older traditional dances and were as likely to be proper as improper). His assumption is contra corners is a figure that always has to be taught no matter who the crowd. When relating this story to my partner, who was not at the festival, he asked whether people sat down when Linda did the demo. Most of them did - but there were a good number who did not. He recalled how it used to be that when the caller asked for a demo, the whole rest of the hall automatically squatted or sat so everyone could see. Very often now people remain standing during demos (at least around here). Just two interesting observations on the evolution of what we're doing and how we do it. I've made a note to teach the contra corners at my local dance sometime soon. (other callers have used it there - but very infrequently). Best to all of you, -cynthia _______________________________________________ Callers mailing list Callers(a)sharedweight.net http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers