Well, it's been a busy couple of weeks, and boy is my body letting me know it. I've been laid up with a cold the last couple of days. So here is what's been happening with the calling side of my life (I guess I don't need to warn you by now that this is going to be a long e-mail): New Voices The New Voices dance was quite a success. All of us (Seth Seeger, Jenna Watson, Cortni Frecha, Nathaniel Jack, Mark Jones and myself) did very well. We had a good crowd (I estimated 60-70 people, Mark probably has a better count) of experienced dancers. We also had great music by Mike Ames, Lissa Schneckenberger (sp!) and Bruce Rosen, who were a delight to work with on stage. My own personal breakthrough that night was that it was the first time that I felt comfortable on-stage. Instead of my nervous energy making me hesitant, I directed it into my calling. It was a great feeling. I called two of my favorite dances that I hadn't called before: Mary Cay's Reel and 333-33. I knew that 333-33 was going to be a challenge, and it was. I worked hard with a form to work out the words (which I created first). The form I used is attached if people are interested. Then I practiced (mostly in the car) calling into a tape recorder. The prep work really paid off at the dance. Dance Flurry The next weekend was the Dance Flurry in Saratoga Springs, NY. This is one of my favorite dance festivals with lots of great dancing, workshops and great people. There were 4 callers workshops during the festival and each had their own focus. The first was Joseph Pinmentel's workshop. He talked about the 3 stages of being a caller: the first is where you're learning the basics (call timing, word choice, parts/structure of the music, etc.), the second he called "flight time" or practice time, and the third I think he called the "process". The third stage was the focus of the workshop. The "process" he was referring to was the cycle of feedback and learning that happens when you're calling regularly. Specifically he put it in terms of the observation cycle: take an action, observe the results, decide what you think about the results, and back to the beginning with taking another action. The part that he observed that most callers had with this cycle was that the feedback was hard to filter away from the junk around it. For example when someone comes up to you after a dance and says: "you called a dance without a neighbor swing. Your calling stinks." His suggestion was that you look for the kernel of good information in any feedback you get. In the example, you take away the information that calling a dance without a neighbor swing made a dancer unhappy. Then you can decide if you're going to call a dance without a neighbor swing the next time without the defensive reaction to the statement. It also means that you can handle the situation better because you can honestly thank the person for their useful feedback and ignore the rest. Of course this is harder than it seems. The rest of the workshop we got up and danced and had different people calling the dances. Then we sat down and made observations and Joseph helped us pick out the kernels of good information in the statements. The funniest moment in the class was when one of the people in the workshop made an observation about a session earlier in the day where the caller didn't run the dances long enough. The observer didn't realize that the caller at that session was Joseph. 8^) You'll see by the lengths of my descriptions that this was my favorite workshop. The next workshop was Rick Mohr's. He focused on the basics of timing and word selection. He talked about timing the words to music in order to end the call at the correct moment. He had some great handouts for this and we all practiced with a fiddler. On Sunday, the first workshop was Ralph Sweet teaching singing squares. He talked about the differences in patter calling and singing and the kind of prep work necessary for singers. Coordinating with the band seems to be the most important one. If you don't practice it, then most likely you won't be able to be flexible with the calling to make sure that the dancers are promenading at the chorus. He has published a nice book full of squares and music that has some great material in it. The last workshop I was late for, since I was having great fun at Rick's Squantras and Contrares session. Peter Amidon was running a workshop where he reviewed a handout with a few basics about calling, dance selection and responsibilities. He then opened the floor to questions and discussion. Most of the questions had to to with resources like where to find dances to call and e-mail discussion groups like ours. I have included a scan of Peter's two sided sheet. VFW After the New Voices dance I was very surprised to receive an e-mail from Sue Rosen inviting me to call at the VFW as part of NEFFA night (a multi-caller evening that happens 3-4 times a year). I was floored. I was nervous. I said yes (how could I say no?). Being a regular dancer at the VFW, I know what a demanding venue it is. I requested that Sue put me in the first slot (1st dance of the evening with the first and second after the break). Then I had to find dances that would go over well there. I knew that one of my dances after the break would be either Mary Cay's or 333-33 since they're fun dances and I already had the calling and teaching worked out for them. I remembered a recent discussion on trad-dance-callers about "Easy yet interesting" dances that I could use for the first dance of the evening, but I was at a loss for the last one. The digital voice recorder that I had been using to collect dances had gone through the washing machine in my shorts the weekend before, erasing about a dozen dances that might have done the job. I spent the whole flurry collecting dances, but they were either too hard or too easy for the VFW. It wasn't until the last session that I danced on Sunday afternoon that I found just the right dance for after the break: Nils Fredland's Head of the Bed. For those who are interested, I have put it at the end of the e-mail. So I had 3 days to prepare after I had my dance selection for the evening. I had a few other things going on in my life, so I didn't prepare as much as I would have liked. On top of things, I was running flat out all week and got hit hard with a cold on Thursday. So I was pretty miserable when I showed up at the VFW that night. At this point I would like to praise the nasal decongestant spray that I bought at the last minute. It kept my nose and throat clear through the evening and allowed me to call. The evening is a haze to me, though. Because of the snow, Linda Leslie wasn't able to make it that night. For a while, it looked like it was going to be Bob Golder and myself. Erica Weiss showed up a dance or two before she was scheduled to go on. Sue called Rick Mohr and he was able to come and call a couple of dances during the second half. This pretty much blew the schedule out of the water, so I ended up calling the first two dances of the evening and the first after the break. I called The Casbah Queens by David McMullen (which I got off the trad-dance-callers list) and Forgotten Treasure as my first two dances. Then I called Head of the Bed as the first one after the break. All of which went over well. My teaching on Head of the Bed didn't go as well as I wanted it to (I was reaching the limits of energy and medicine), but the experience of the dancers made up for it and the dance was a success. Great music by Lise Brown, Dave Langford and Bruce Rosen combined with good material and lots of experienced dancers made up for any mistakes I might of made that night. Thankfully, my fuzzy head that night made it impossible to be nervous about calling at the VFW. A few people came up to me afterwards and mentioned that they didn't even know that I was sick until I told them. One of the unfortunate things about getting sick was that I had to turn down all of my favorite dance partners as they came up to ask me to dance while I was sitting out. Epilog I have also attached a handout from Tony Parkes' workshop at the Ralph Page weekend for your enjoyment. Once again, I'm hoping that you are enjoying these e-mails and that those of you who are thinking about taking the leap into calling are inspired to take another step. All the best, Chris Weiler Head of the Bed Nils Fredland Becket A1 Slide Left, Cir. L 3/4 w/new neighbors Neighbor Swing A2 R&L thru Ladies Chain B1 1/2 hey Shadow Swing B2 LL fwd & bk Gents roll Shadow away Partner Swing