Today's Topics: 1. callers: what are you guys up to? (Lisa Greenleaf) 2. Re: callers: what are you guys up to? (Seth Seeger) 3. Re: callers: what are you guys up to? (Chris Weiler) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 12:05:18 -0400 From: Lisa Greenleaf <greeny(a)rcn.com> Subject: [Callers] callers: what are you guys up to? To: <callers(a)sharedweight.net> Message-ID: <BD901EA8.16C20%greeny(a)rcn.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" So you took Tom's class at Pinewoods, and now you're asking questions and going to dances with a different eye and ear. Have you been calling? Got any stories you want to share? What did you learn? What delighted you? What surprised you? Keep us posted! Lisa ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 15:48:25 -0400 From: Seth Seeger <seth(a)seeger.ws> Subject: Re: [Callers] callers: what are you guys up to? To: <callers(a)sharedweight.net> <callers(a)sharedweight.net> <callers(a)sharedweight.net> Message-ID: <83A94CFA-1BBE-11D9-BD94-000A959CF174(a)seeger.ws> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed A couple things have happened to my dancing: I now pay more attention to the dances themselves and what in particular I may not like about a dance. I'm also listening very closely to the caller's walk through, looking for things I would have done differently or nice ways of explaining something that I may want to remember. During a dance however, I'm still able to get into my "zone" where I'm not thinking about the dance - just letting my body move with the music. If it's a dance that I want to write down, I have to really work at coming out of that zone so I can remember the dance. (If I just let my muscle memory handle it, I have a hard time recalling the details afterwards.) Writing down dances is an interesting task: If it's a dance I like, I'll repeat the moves to myself as I'm dancing it. In hopes that will help me write it down afterwards. (I've been carrying pen and paper in my pocket.) I usually have trouble remembering the name and author. I've emailed the callers afterwards asking for clarifications on ones I'm not sure about. As for calling, I've got a gig on Nov 20th in East Sandwich. I've very excited (and nervous) about it. I'm going down to East Sandwich this weekend to see what the dancing is like and to get a feel for the dancers. I also tried calling a square to a small group of friends recently - it was MUCH harder than I thought it would be. The hardest parts were keeping up with the music, remembering when to come in after a swing, and the transition between the square and the break. (I hadn't practiced to the music that I ended up using.) I'm going to try to go to the Nelson NH dance every now and then (it's an open mic), but it's 1.5 hours away. Seth On Oct 11, 2004, at 12:05 PM, Lisa Greenleaf wrote: ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 23:00:22 -0400 From: Chris Weiler <chris.weiler(a)weirdtable.org> Subject: Re: [Callers] callers: what are you guys up to? To: callers(a)sharedweight.net Message-ID: <416B48C6.8070908(a)weirdtable.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed I, too, am paying more attention at dances. I notice what I like and don't like about particular dances. I bought a cheap digital voice recorder to keep in my pocket (I sweat too much to keep paper in my pocket). If I like the dance I dictate the dance into the recorder before the next dance starts (along with who called it what night and what they said about the name/author). I find that I'm only taking mental notes about wording/teaching, etc. with callers that I enjoy instead of critiquing callers that I don't. I have been doing some work on figuring out how I am going to organize my dances. Being a geek working in a digital environment, I am working on a system where my dances are formatted on my computer and I print them on colored card stock and cut them to index card size. (The data has a backup!) 8^) I plan on using the colored card system that Bob Issacs (and Nathaniel Jack) use. Bob sent me a basic library of 50 dances that he uses as part of the callers workshop that he teaches and that I plan on using as the seed of my collection. A friend has helped organize a new callers dance on December 4th from 2-5pm in Arlington (Park Ave. Church). Seth, Nathaniel and I are each doing 1/3 of the program. I have been doing some thinking about my program (I'm calling the first 4 dances) and the feeling that I am going to try for, but haven't picked out the dances yet. I will probably do that once I have my dances organized on cards. I have also talked to another caller about doing an entire evening at another dance. I'm also going to try and get to the Milford, NH dance this month. A (different) friend told me that the organizer might be open to allowing a new caller to call half or all of an evening and I want to go there and see what it's like and meet him. Once I have some calling experiences to share, I will definitely share them with the list! Chris Seth Seeger wrote: ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Callers mailing list Callers(a)sharedweight.net http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers End of Callers Digest, Vol 2, Issue 7 *************************************