5 Sep
2016
5 Sep
'16
9:38 p.m.
Sigh. Why is "join right with right in front, left hands behind the gent's
back, gents walk forward and ladies back up" way more difficult than "join
left with left in front, right hands behind the lady's back, ladies walk
forward and gents back up"? It's not, but....
A numerical argument:
Say in a typical evening of 13 dances, 6 dances include a ladies' chain,
R&L through, or promenade across (wherein turning to face back in counts as
a courtesy turn) and 2 more dances contain either two of one or one each of
two. (I consider that a conservative estimate given the ubiquity of ladies'
chains!) That makes 10 iterations of standard courtesy turn; if each
sequence is run for an average of 8 minutes (16 iterations of the dance)
that's 160 iterations of standard courtesy turn in a typical evening of
dance.
Now, since a small minority of callers ever get off their butt and use a
gents LH chain (because it's soooooooooo difficult), let's say one gents
chain shows up in every 10 evenings of dance we go to (this time, a very
liberal estimate). Same assumptions of average dance run time, so that's 16
iterations to practice the reverse courtesy turn.
But since we danced ten evenings to get that one gents LH chain in, we had
a whopping *1,600 iterations of practice for the standard courtesy turn to
our 16 iterations of practice for the reverse*.
The only real reason* the standard turn *seems* "easier" is because we get
s---loads more practice at it! That will never change unless the reverse
turn gets more use. It's hard because we so rarely do it, and we don't do
it because it's hard. Great work everybody. Look at us exceeding our
programming.
Aahz, I would say the same for myself - a regular role-swapper, heavy-duty
twirler in both roles, and "usually good about paying attention" - but I
don't really care how often other callers dance both roles. The fact
remains that many dancers don't, and of the dancers that don't, many lack
the enhanced sensitivity to whether others want to be twirled that comes
with being ambidancetrous. How aware we are is not an argument against the
necessity of raising dancers' awareness. Let's elevate the level of dance
in our communities.
*The other possible reason: resistance to any actual built-in choreographic
challenge to gender-normativity. When we're voluntarily swapping roles, we
are queering the dance, and the dance's built-in gender inequity is
secondary to our experience - but when the choreography itself challenges
the form's built-in gender assumptions, it feels somehow wrong. I use
traditional, gendered calling language in posts about choreography and
gender inequality in the dance for a reason. How many dances involve the
ladies doing a move - do-si-do, gypsy, et cetera - while the gents stand
around and watch? How many dances involve ladies' chains? How few
iterations of the reverse are there? No matter how much the ambidancetrous
among us queer it on the floor, no matter how much we gloss over it by
using alternative term sets, the prominence of gender in the roles is
pretty hard to miss. Alternative term sets and role swapping have their
place. I'm interested in the fact that neither of these things makes a
perfectly good figure easier to use.
Meh. I think you've got part of a point, but as someone who gender-swaps
regularly (often within a single set), I find doing
the reverse courtesy
turn way more difficult than doing a regular courtesy turn dancing raven.
And I'm also a heavy-duty twirler, both lark and raven. And I'm usually
good about paying attention to whether someone wants to be twirled.
Probably I could learn the reverse courtesy turn, but I think you're
underestimating the difficulty.
5 Sep
5 Sep
11:38 p.m.
New subject: Chains: the other side of the coin
Tavi,
Thanks for opening discussion on this topic.
I'd like to propose that we call the move what it is: "chain", and we stop
calling left-hand chains as "gents chains" and right-hand chains as
"ladies
chains" for two important reasons:
1. No other common move in contra has the role in the move. It's "chain",
being prompted to "ladies", the same way there's no difference between a
"gents allemande left" and a "ladies allemande left". In genderfree
contras, callers certainly don't prompt, "Rubies, ladies chain" - they swap
the role, because that's the role *prompt*, not actually part of the move
name.
2. For moves that have a left and right version, there are two conventions,
none of which "gents/ladies chain" follows. The conventions are:
A. Having two totally different move names. This is often ignored and
prompted like "left shoulder dosido" instead of see-saw, leading me to
think that having mirrored moves with different names is less useful than
the other convention.......
B. The move name is the base, and the direction is a modifying prefix or
suffix to a prompt* Star, allemande, balance, etc. (Technically, the "hey"
as well, since you indicate who-passes-which-shoulder-first). Often, any of
these moves, once walked through, are prompted vanilla-flavored, without
the direction modifier, because the hand/direction is obvious. (Gents,
allemande left, pass your partner, hey for four...)
It seems intuitive then that "chain" falls into the latter category, and
should be treated as such.
The move is "chain", and there's a left and right handed version, and the
handedness is usually unnecessary because the role of the people doing it
will make the hand used to pull-by obvious. But for calling card notation,
the handedness is useful to notate.
...
As someone who's been writing and calling gents right-hand chain dances, I
see the pros and cons of the gents left-hand chain as follow:
Pros:
1. An extra move that can flow into a gents-pass-L / gents alle R / etc
next move - so there are new combinations to find.
2. More variation in general. More moves to play with.
Cons:
1. Another Clockwise-rotation move that is less usable than a
counter-clockwise move. A left-hand chain is simply not as useful as a
right-hand chain for this reason.
2. As Aahz pointed out, we're accustomed to twirling with right-hands, and
so left-hand twirling is new and unusual.
3. A right-hand chain is just ... a chain. And in dances where you get
role-swapping, you need to do zero-to-little teaching of a gents right-hand
chain.
So rather than promote the left-hand chain, I would broaden any support to
be for doing *all* chains.
Best,
Ron
On Mon, Sep 5, 2016 at 9:38 PM, tavi merrill via Callers <
callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Sigh. Why is "join right with right in front,
left hands behind the gent's
back, gents walk forward and ladies back up" way more difficult than "join
left with left in front, right hands behind the lady's back, ladies walk
forward and gents back up"? It's not, but....
A numerical argument:
Say in a typical evening of 13 dances, 6 dances include a ladies' chain,
R&L through, or promenade across (wherein turning to face back in counts as
a courtesy turn) and 2 more dances contain either two of one or one each of
two. (I consider that a conservative estimate given the ubiquity of ladies'
chains!) That makes 10 iterations of standard courtesy turn; if each
sequence is run for an average of 8 minutes (16 iterations of the dance)
that's 160 iterations of standard courtesy turn in a typical evening of
dance.
Now, since a small minority of callers ever get off their butt and use a
gents LH chain (because it's soooooooooo difficult), let's say one gents
chain shows up in every 10 evenings of dance we go to (this time, a very
liberal estimate). Same assumptions of average dance run time, so that's 16
iterations to practice the reverse courtesy turn.
But since we danced ten evenings to get that one gents LH chain in, we had
a whopping *1,600 iterations of practice for the standard courtesy turn
to our 16 iterations of practice for the reverse*.
The only real reason* the standard turn *seems* "easier" is because we
get s---loads more practice at it! That will never change unless the
reverse turn gets more use. It's hard because we so rarely do it, and we
don't do it because it's hard. Great work everybody. Look at us exceeding
our programming.
Aahz, I would say the same for myself - a regular role-swapper, heavy-duty
twirler in both roles, and "usually good about paying attention" - but I
don't really care how often other callers dance both roles. The fact
remains that many dancers don't, and of the dancers that don't, many lack
the enhanced sensitivity to whether others want to be twirled that comes
with being ambidancetrous. How aware we are is not an argument against the
necessity of raising dancers' awareness. Let's elevate the level of dance
in our communities.
*The other possible reason: resistance to any actual built-in
choreographic challenge to gender-normativity. When we're voluntarily
swapping roles, we are queering the dance, and the dance's built-in gender
inequity is secondary to our experience - but when the choreography itself
challenges the form's built-in gender assumptions, it feels somehow
wrong. I use traditional, gendered calling language in posts about
choreography and gender inequality in the dance for a reason. How many
dances involve the ladies doing a move - do-si-do, gypsy, et cetera - while
the gents stand around and watch? How many dances involve ladies' chains?
How few iterations of the reverse are there? No matter how much the
ambidancetrous among us queer it on the floor, no matter how much we gloss
over it by using alternative term sets, the prominence of gender in the
roles is pretty hard to miss. Alternative term sets and role swapping have
their place. I'm interested in the fact that neither of these things makes
a perfectly good figure easier to use.
Meh. I think you've got part of a point, but as someone who gender-swaps
regularly (often within a single set), I find
doing the reverse courtesy
turn way more difficult than doing a regular courtesy turn dancing raven.
And I'm also a heavy-duty twirler, both lark and raven. And I'm usually
good about paying attention to whether someone wants to be twirled.
Probably I could learn the reverse courtesy turn, but I think you're
underestimating the difficulty.
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1 comments
2 participants
participants (2)
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Ron Blechner via Callers -
tavi merrill via Callers