Armbands and barearms work well as terms to use, but you would have to have ribbon to make the armbands, or perhaps use scarves, or ties. Many gender free dance callers use the armbands and bare arms terminology when the dance provides the armbands for the leaders role. There has to be some distinction in the dance as to who is doing what role. Dave Colestock Harrisburg, PA --- On Thu, 12/2/10, susie rudder<surudder1(a)earthlink.net> wrote: From: susie rudder<surudder1(a)earthlink.net> Subject: [Callers] Gender free dances To: callers(a)sharedweight.net Date: Thursday, December 2, 2010, 1:02 PM I have been asked to call for a new dance group forming in a small town near our regular dance. Experienced dancers were asked to come help these absolute newbies, and some local musicians have volunteered their services. It became obvious that about half the dancers were lesbians who asked me to use non gender specific terms when calling. I tried 'lead' and 'follow' because the syllable numbers worked, but I'm not happy with that. I also had some regular dancers comment on not wanting to deal with 'some' peoples' political agendas as related to contra calling. I have never dealt with gender free calling and would appreciate ANY help from those of you who may have been doing it for years. What terms seem to work best? Any other hints to make things go more smoothly? These people are very enthusiastic and I want to see the dance succeed. _______________________________________________ Callers mailing list Callers(a)sharedweight.net http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers _______________________________________________ Callers mailing list Callers(a)sharedweight.net http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers

For more than two decades, Chris Ricciotti has been the leading exponent of the armbands/barearms method of role free calling. Chris has made available a web-based Gender-Free Dancing Callers Manual and History as a callers' resource. This is the best available published source of information. Go to: http://lcfd.org/Articles/GFManual/ Robert Golder New Bedford, MA, USA On Dec 2, 2010, at 1:02 PM, susie rudder wrote: _______________________________________________ Callers mailing list Callers(a)sharedweight.net http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers

It might be reasonable to eliminate as many gendered terms as possible, but when we just can't avoid it ("Gents allemande", or "ladies chain") why don't we all just relax and not worry about it? True sensitivity to gender issues goes a lot deeper than just man/woman, gay/lesbian. In addition to sexual preference, there's biology, which can occasionally be indeterminate, and there are people whose gender identity does not match their assigned gender. It seems to me that we can just dance these old (and new) dances, making it clear that anyone is welcome to dance any part, and that their gender does not have to match the calls of the dance, and so long as the attentions are welcome, they may flirt with whomever they please. (Straight, gay, lesbian, bi, or other...) M E

Martha wrote: backwards I've been calling gender-free English sporadically for about 10 years, most recently in Jamaica Plain this September. Doing this teaches you to think about the dances globally. There's all kinds of not-that-old dance instructions which say "first man turns second woman", which, first, implies active man and passive woman when we don't want to dance that way, and second, has a lot of syllables. "First corners turn right hand", and you've directed both to actively do something. In English, there are a lot of dances where both members of a couple are doing the same thing, and you can nicely get through all the instructions with "1s", "2s", "1st corners", "2nd corners". For gender-free, I usually try to program mostly dances where I can do that. But there are some lovely dances where you can't do that, and nobody seems to have much trouble with identifying lines by landmarks. In Jamaica Plain, it's the clock and the window. So life is good on the gender-free English side. Nobody needs to wear a marker, you belong to the couple you're lined up in, you're on the side you stood on this time - and the roles are very similar, and nobody feels the need to swap during the dance, but if they did, it wouldn't be very confusing because there's no expectation of a particular gender in a particular side. (And, indeed, even gendered English skews so much more female that people largely get over expecting plumbing that matches the role.) I think things are different in modern contra choreography. Because so many of the dances are improper and the roles are typically different (although men can get chained), it's often helpful to have some kind of signifier. Line up for an improper contra. The 'nominal men' are in second corner places, the 'nominal women' are in first corner places. "Clocks" would be first woman and second man, which is not so useful - typically if they're going to do something, the windows are going to do it too, in modern contra dancing, so you might as well say "neighbors balance and swing" and get on with it. Heather and Rose english/scottish style would have you say "right file" for *that* line and "left file" for *that* line, which sometimes degenerates to "righties" and "lefties". Too many syllables, requires knowing right from left, requires remembering which line you were in when the dance started, etc. So I don't think that the geographical suggestion is any help for contra, and I don't think that the suggestion that people should just deal with whoever they come across and not fuss about what sex they're supposed to be (which I heartily endorse!) is actually any help with solving the problem that "bands" and "bares" solves. The idea is to have a clear way to assign a role, which role doesn't have a sex-linked component, so people know where they should be standing in an improper contra, and so they know who the caller is talking to. This also gives the caller _some_ chance of being able to see if the right people are in the right places, which you don't get without external markers. If you want to dance the band role one dance and the bare arm the next, you take off the armband. If you want to switch roles with your partner in the middle of the dance, you can trade the band. So *for gender-free contra dance*, bands and bares - put on by the dancer themself, by conscious decision, for each dance - make lots of sense, don't enforce gender roles like a tie or a fedora or a head-scarf, don't push the agenda down the throat as much as arbitrary designations ("hippos and butterflies"), and are overall a Good Thing that Really Works. Honest. I've seen it. While I'm pontificating: While I support the right of people to change roles in the middle of the dance at gendered contra if they want to, and think everybody ought to just swing whoever they get (if you're dancing a woman's role at the moment you ought to take the woman's position in the swing), I also think people who insist on doing that when it freaks out their neighbors are valuing their own fun more highly than the comfort of other people there and are behaving in an anti-communitarian way - which is their perfect right, but it's not an unalloyed good. And some of the people who are freaked out are freaked out because if somebody they're not expecting comes at them they think somebody (maybe them) are in the wrong place and their anxiety level goes up. Not homophobia - just hanging onto the dance by their fingernails. That's a good thing to be aware of when you're swapping sides in gendered contra land. -- Alan

-----Original Message----- From: callers-bounces(a)sharedweight.net [mailto:callers- bounces(a)sharedweight.net] On Behalf Of Amy Cann Sent: Friday, December 03, 2010 11:14 PM To: Caller's discussion list Subject: Re: [Callers] Gender free dances Here's a thought I've been toying with for a while: A term we use in knitting to identify which way yarn twists is "N-wise or Z- wise" (think of a piece of yarn, look at the slanty lines the plies make, look at the center slashes of an N, then a Z. See it?) How many moves could be identified this way?

Here's a thought I've been toying with for a while: A term we use in knitting to identify which way yarn twists is "N-wise or Z-wise" (think of a piece of yarn, look at the slanty lines the plies make, look at the center slashes of an N, then a Z. See it?) How many moves could be identified this way? "Facing up and down, the first corners on the N diagonal, allemande once and a half." "Facing across, Z diagonals start a hey by the left" "Facing across, N's diagonal chain" As one who's life has been a little gender-role-freeish, I feel politically entitled to come out and say I DON't like the band/bare thing, just because the verbiage is less than euphonious to my ears. That said, I don't have any better ideas .... yet. But I'm thinking, I'm thinking. In many dances the roles of the "gent" and "lady" are NOT the same -- one is a little more active, one is more reactive. In any given pair of people, one PERson is often more active than the other. It's the interplay of these two things (when do they match, support each other? When do they work in opposition?) that make dances so unexpectedly yummy. There must be a way to acknowledge and embrace this -- if we get too neutral we'll lose the story lines that make some of our best dances come to life. Hmmm. On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 3:29 PM, Martha Edwards <meedwards(a)westendweb.com>wrote;wrote: _______________________________________________ Callers mailing list Callers(a)sharedweight.net http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers

Jim McKinney wrote: I like that. (I'm somewhat hesitant to introduce yet more numbers to the occasion - we've got 1st and 2nd couples, occasional counting in the dancer's heads to stick with the music - but the caller would (mostly) not be saying the number, so it could work out.) You'd need to take care to have people identify themselves before you Beckettized a set, though. -- Alan

besides, if you start taking out or modifying the figures by making them neutral, you'll lose a lot of distinctive figures that people really like to dance.  there are plenty of neutral figures already.

I feel compelled to comment on this very fascinating discussion about calling gender-free dances, especially now that the subject of eliminating "dominant/submissive" moves like the courtesy turn has come up. I have a gay son, and one of my students once described me as the most politically-correct person he'd ever met, but come on, people. One of the things that adds zest to contra dancing, and in my opinion to life in general, is the interplay of men's and women's roles... as one of the earlier correspondents put it, "when do they match and support each other? When do they work in opposition, it's what makes dances so unexpectedly yummy. We have to acknowledge and embrace those issues, because if we get too neutral we'll lose the story lines that make some of our best dances come to life". I couldn't agree more. I am not sure what new language could be developed to replace "ladies" and "gents". Some of the suggestions seem valid. But when the discussion turns to eliminating some of the most pleasurable aspects of contra dancing simply to make the event more gender-neutral, I cannot help but think we're becoming absurdly politically correct. -Lewis Land As one who's life has been a little gender-role-freeish, I feel politically because any is other. neutral On 12/4/2010 10:08 PM, Jim McKinney wrote: _______________________________________________ Callers mailing list Callers(a)sharedweight.net http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers

There's my inexperience showing. Beckett formation never even crossed my mind. Something I have been thinking about in regard to this gender free discussion is ladies chain with a courtesy turn. Having Evens/Ns/Bares chain removes gender from the language but the act of courtesy turn still seems very dominant/submissive to me. My wife and I tried walking through a couple options: a skater's/promenade hand-hold in front or a no hand-hold, kind of gypsy to maintain the interaction and still get turned around the right way. The thing we decided we liked best was evens chain across to an allemande left. That seemed to keep the roles more neutral no matter which part was danced by a man or woman and still get everyone into the right places. I love ladies chain with a courtesy turn and as a dancer would hate to give that up but as a caller I think I need to be prepared for the occasion when neutral is better. Jim Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing wrote: _______________________________________________ Callers mailing list Callers(a)sharedweight.net http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers