New (to me) choreography idea - Contra Callers

30 Jun 2025

Watching dancers play around at a recent dance, I had the following idea for a “choose
your own adventure” variation.

The idea is that you do a full hey, but any or all crossings can be replaced by ricochets,
with no pattern or requirements (other than that both people have to agree on the choice
made at each stage.)  They can then straighten things out by circling left until every
body is on the side where they belong.

For example, here is the modification of Gene Hubert’s Butter along these lines

Becket
A1	Progress left to the next couple, circle left 3/4,
	Neighbor swing
A2	Long lines
	Robins chain
B1	Robins start a full hey by the right, with ricochets permitted, but not required at
each of the 4 crossings 

B2	Circle left until everyone is on their original side with their partner
	Partner swing

I don’t know whether the variable circle length and resulting shorter or longer swing will
be a source of fun or an annoyance, but it looks worth trying. 
I think if everyone ends up where they started at the end of the hey, they probably should
do a long swing, rather than requiring a circle left all the way, but that’s a detail.

At this point, I am calling dances only occasionally, so I won’t be trying it out any time
soon.

Please let me know what you think, and how it goes if you try it out.

Thanks,
Russell Frank
Monterey, CA