6 Jan
2013
6 Jan
'13
6 p.m.
Hi "call"eagues,
As a minor-league caller working towards a National-league position, i'm
always on the search for new repertoire. Unfortunately, whenever i peruse
collections - be they callers' websites or books like "Zesty Contras" -
i'm
easily distracted by bright, shiny choreography that fascinates my
nerd-mind (Marshmallow Surprise! A Slice of Life! Possums in the House!),
but often takes a rare crowd of dancers to appreciate. Even the favorite
dances we tend to share with caller friends often veer toward the highly
"interesting". It's easy to find simple dances with a down-the-hall figure,
but i'm specifically looking for low to medium piece-count dances WITHOUT
down the hall.
I'm wondering if anyone could point me towards dances that really hit a
homer - things like: Jubilation (Gene Hubert), Thanks to the Gene (Tom
HInds) Another Nice Combination (Tome Hinds), Star Struck (Nick Boulet),
Simplicity Swing (Becky Hill), The Carousel (GH), The Baby Rose (David
Kaynor), All You Can Eat (Ted Crane), 20 Below (Bill Olson)... dances that
can be the bread and butter of a less advanced evening, or just a handy
fall-back for more capable crowds. Dances without down-the-hall, and
without awkward transitions (right&left through -> circle L?! agh!).
What are the best places to go looking for other bread-and-butter
repertoire like those? Anybody have a favorite fall-back or
last-of-the-night dance they'd like to share?
I'm not only asking for myself, but for anyone out there who finds it very
easy to collect 'advanced' level dances but harder to find accessible
dances that are truly satisfying with good flow.
6 Jan
6 Jan
6:19 p.m.
Hi Tavi,
This is one of the places I hope the Dance Video Archives (
http://dancevideos.childgrove.org/) would be helful. you can see the dances
in their "native" environment. also, a lot of the material in the MO Dances
collection will meet that criteria,,,one distinct move in and otherwise
basic dance.
bob luck on your search....
Bob
On Sun, Jan 6, 2013 at 5:00 PM, tavi merrill
<melodiouswoodchuck(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:
Hi "call"eagues,
As a minor-league caller working towards a National-league position, i'm
always on the search for new repertoire. Unfortunately, whenever i peruse
collections - be they callers' websites or books like "Zesty Contras" -
i'm
easily distracted by bright, shiny choreography that fascinates my
nerd-mind (Marshmallow Surprise! A Slice of Life! Possums in the House!),
but often takes a rare crowd of dancers to appreciate. Even the favorite
dances we tend to share with caller friends often veer toward the highly
"interesting". It's easy to find simple dances with a down-the-hall
figure,
but i'm specifically looking for low to medium piece-count dances WITHOUT
down the hall.
I'm wondering if anyone could point me towards dances that really hit a
homer - things like: Jubilation (Gene Hubert), Thanks to the Gene (Tom
HInds) Another Nice Combination (Tome Hinds), Star Struck (Nick Boulet),
Simplicity Swing (Becky Hill), The Carousel (GH), The Baby Rose (David
Kaynor), All You Can Eat (Ted Crane), 20 Below (Bill Olson)... dances that
can be the bread and butter of a less advanced evening, or just a handy
fall-back for more capable crowds. Dances without down-the-hall, and
without awkward transitions (right&left through -> circle L?! agh!).
What are the best places to go looking for other bread-and-butter
repertoire like those? Anybody have a favorite fall-back or
last-of-the-night dance they'd like to share?
I'm not only asking for myself, but for anyone out there who finds it very
easy to collect 'advanced' level dances but harder to find accessible
dances that are truly satisfying with good flow.
_______________________________________________
Callers mailing list
Callers(a)sharedweight.net
http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers
8:42 p.m.
How about these?
A-1 Reel by Chris Weiler
Snake Oil Reel by Roger Diggle
Daffy's Becket by John Gallagher
Cows Are Watching by Bill Pope
The Casbah Queens by David McMullen
The Carousel by Tom Hinds
Al's Safeway Produce by Robert Cromartie
You Can't Get There From Here by Carol Ormand
Rolling and Tumbling by Cis Hinkle
Tica Tica Timing by Dean Snipes
They're fun for both beginners (with programming support) and more
experienced dancers. I see you already have 20 Below, Simplicity,
etc. Oops, and Carousel, too. :)
Have fun!
Joy Greenwolfe
Durham, NC
On Jan 6, 2013, at 6:00 PM, tavi merrill wrote:
Hi "call"eagues,
As a minor-league caller working towards a National-league position,
i'm
always on the search for new repertoire. Unfortunately, whenever i
peruse
collections - be they callers' websites or books like "Zesty
Contras" - i'm
easily distracted by bright, shiny choreography that fascinates my
nerd-mind (Marshmallow Surprise! A Slice of Life! Possums in the
House!),
but often takes a rare crowd of dancers to appreciate. Even the
favorite
dances we tend to share with caller friends often veer toward the
highly
"interesting". It's easy to find simple dances with a down-the-hall
figure,
but i'm specifically looking for low to medium piece-count dances
WITHOUT
down the hall.
I'm wondering if anyone could point me towards dances that really
hit a
homer - things like: Jubilation (Gene Hubert), Thanks to the Gene (Tom
HInds) Another Nice Combination (Tome Hinds), Star Struck (Nick
Boulet),
Simplicity Swing (Becky Hill), The Carousel (GH), The Baby Rose (David
Kaynor), All You Can Eat (Ted Crane), 20 Below (Bill Olson)...
dances that
can be the bread and butter of a less advanced evening, or just a
handy
fall-back for more capable crowds. Dances without down-the-hall, and
without awkward transitions (right&left through -> circle L?! agh!).
What are the best places to go looking for other bread-and-butter
repertoire like those? Anybody have a favorite fall-back or
last-of-the-night dance they'd like to share?
I'm not only asking for myself, but for anyone out there who finds
it very
easy to collect 'advanced' level dances but harder to find accessible
dances that are truly satisfying with good flow.
_______________________________________________
Callers mailing list
Callers(a)sharedweight.net
http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers
7 Jan
7 Jan
12:20 a.m.
On Sun, Jan 6, 2013 at 3:00 PM, tavi merrill
<melodiouswoodchuck(a)gmail.com> wrote:
...I'm specifically looking for low to medium
piece-count dances WITHOUT
down the hall.
I'm wondering if anyone could point me towards dances that really hit a
homer - things like: Jubilation (Gene Hubert), Thanks to the Gene (Tom
HInds) Another Nice Combination (Tome Hinds), Star Struck (Nick Boulet),
Simplicity Swing (Becky Hill), The Carousel (GH), The Baby Rose (David
Kaynor), All You Can Eat (Ted Crane), 20 Below (Bill Olson)... dances that
can be the bread and butter of a less advanced evening, or just a handy
fall-back for more capable crowds. Dances without down-the-hall, and
without awkward transitions (right&left through -> circle L?! agh!).
By the way, The Carousel is by Tom Hinds.
What are the best places to go looking for other
bread-and-butter
repertoire like those? Anybody have a favorite fall-back or
last-of-the-night dance they'd like to share?
As a new caller, I often think about this question of discovery. The
problem with collecting dances from published collections is that they
don't reflect the statistical reality of what dances actually get
called (which is a close enough approximation to what you're looking
for). Better, then, is to find sources that sample from a distribution
that's more similar to what dances actually get called. I like two
kinds of sources best: (1) going to contra dances, and (2) YouTube
videos (thanks to Chris Page for annotating many of them).
Incidentally, yesterday I prepared a lengthy list of relatively simple
dances (I wasn't sure how many I was going to need). These are the
ones without down the hall figures. In no particular order:
Simplicity Swing (Becky Hill)
The Second Time Around (Jim Kitch)
Easy Street (Bob Isaacs)
I Wish They All Could Be California Twirls (Jim Kitch)
Trip to Cleveland (Becky Hill)
Small Potatoes (Jim Kitch)
Hocus Pocus (Lisa Greenleaf)
Winter Storm (Linda Leslie)
Cranky Ingenuity (Bill Olson)
Judah Jig (Charlie Fenton)
A Last Hurrah (Erik Hoffman)
Summer of '94 (Mike Richardson / Lisa Greenleaf's variation)
Fairport Harbor (Paul Balliet)
You Can't Get There from Here (Carol Ormand)
Spring Fever (Tony Parkes)
Travels with Rick and Kim (Shari Miller-Johnson)
A Dance for Dan (Bill Olson)
More than one other caller, I think, has also chosen Tica Tica Timing
(Dean Snipes) as a last dance.
Hope this helps,
Yoyo Zhou
1:09 a.m.
Can you define "down the hall" and explain why you see it as a problem?
Do you mean "down the hall four in line", "Twos down the outside?"
Any
"down the hall" figure at all?
Just wondering.
- Greg McKenzie
******************
On Sun, Jan 6, 2013 at 3:00 PM, tavi merrill
<melodiouswoodchuck(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:
Hi "call"eagues,
As a minor-league caller working towards a National-league position, i'm
always on the search for new repertoire. Unfortunately, whenever i peruse
collections - be they callers' websites or books like "Zesty Contras" -
i'm
easily distracted by bright, shiny choreography that fascinates my
nerd-mind (Marshmallow Surprise! A Slice of Life! Possums in the House!),
but often takes a rare crowd of dancers to appreciate. Even the favorite
dances we tend to share with caller friends often veer toward the highly
"interesting". It's easy to find simple dances with a down-the-hall
figure,
but i'm specifically looking for low to medium piece-count dances WITHOUT
down the hall.
I'm wondering if anyone could point me towards dances that really hit a
homer - things like: Jubilation (Gene Hubert), Thanks to the Gene (Tom
HInds) Another Nice Combination (Tome Hinds), Star Struck (Nick Boulet),
Simplicity Swing (Becky Hill), The Carousel (GH), The Baby Rose (David
Kaynor), All You Can Eat (Ted Crane), 20 Below (Bill Olson)... dances that
can be the bread and butter of a less advanced evening, or just a handy
fall-back for more capable crowds. Dances without down-the-hall, and
without awkward transitions (right&left through -> circle L?! agh!).
What are the best places to go looking for other bread-and-butter
repertoire like those? Anybody have a favorite fall-back or
last-of-the-night dance they'd like to share?
I'm not only asking for myself, but for anyone out there who finds it very
easy to collect 'advanced' level dances but harder to find accessible
dances that are truly satisfying with good flow.
_______________________________________________
Callers mailing list
Callers(a)sharedweight.net
http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers
1:37 a.m.
On Sun, Jan 6, 2013 at 10:09 PM, Greg McKenzie <grekenzie(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Can you define "down the hall" and explain
why you see it as a problem?
Do you mean "down the hall four in line", "Twos down the outside?"
Any
"down the hall" figure at all?
Just wondering.
I can't speak for Tavi, but "It's easy to find simple dances with a
down-the-hall figure..." suggests that finding more dances that go
down the hall is not the pressing question, not that down the hall is
a problem per se.
Down the hall in a line of 4 is by far the most common these days,
and it's distinctive enough that I'd be surprised to see it more than
twice in an evening. (Consider how often dancers automatically end a
swing facing across without the caller telling them to.) So one's
program needs to include a lot more dances that don't contain a
down-the-hall figure.
Yoyo Zhou
2:15 a.m.
On 1/6/2013 3:00 PM, tavi merrill wrote:
I'm wondering if anyone could point me towards
dances that really hit a
homer - things like: Jubilation (Gene Hubert), Thanks to the Gene (Tom
HInds) Another Nice Combination (Tome Hinds), Star Struck (Nick Boulet),
Simplicity Swing (Becky Hill), The Carousel (GH), The Baby Rose (David
Kaynor), All You Can Eat (Ted Crane), 20 Below (Bill Olson)... dances that
can be the bread and butter of a less advanced evening, or just a handy
fall-back for more capable crowds. Dances without down-the-hall, and
without awkward transitions (right&left through -> circle L?! agh!).
Without addressing your actual question, there's a fix for that oogy
transition that Lynn Ackerson showed me. Lynn, you here? Hi! Instead
of a R&L through with courtesy turn, do a no-hands pass-through straight
across and a California twirl into the circle. It feels great.
Kalia
2:58 a.m.
On Sun, Jan 06, 2013, Kalia Kliban wrote:
On 1/6/2013 3:00 PM, tavi merrill wrote:
...except that people seem to have a lot of trouble actually DOING it
because they are so used to doing a courtesy turn. (I wrote a dance
with pass thru, twirl, men allemande. I've learned that I have to make
people walk through that the pass thru/twirl three times and they still
often don't do it properly.)
--
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 http://rule6.info/
<*> <*> <*>
Help a hearing-impaired person: http://rule6.info/hearing.html
I'm wondering if anyone could point me towards dances that really hit a
homer - things like: Jubilation (Gene Hubert), Thanks to the Gene (Tom
HInds) Another Nice Combination (Tome Hinds), Star Struck (Nick Boulet),
Simplicity Swing (Becky Hill), The Carousel (GH), The Baby Rose (David
Kaynor), All You Can Eat (Ted Crane), 20 Below (Bill Olson)... dances that
can be the bread and butter of a less advanced evening, or just a handy
fall-back for more capable crowds. Dances without down-the-hall, and
without awkward transitions (right&left through -> circle L?! agh!).
Without addressing your actual question, there's a fix for that oogy
transition that Lynn Ackerson showed me. Lynn, you here? Hi!
Instead of a R&L through with courtesy turn, do a no-hands
pass-through straight across and a California twirl into the circle.
It feels great. 
10:42 a.m.
My philosophy is that, as a caller, all I can do is explain how to make the transition
smoother. If they choose not to do it, that's their right.
--- On Sun, 1/6/13, Aahz Maruch <aahz(a)pobox.com> wrote:
From: Aahz Maruch <aahz(a)pobox.com>
Subject: Re: [Callers] Repertoire...
To: "Caller's discussion list" <callers(a)sharedweight.net>
Date: Sunday, January 6, 2013, 11:58 PM
On Sun, Jan 06, 2013, Kalia Kliban
wrote:
On 1/6/2013 3:00 PM, tavi merrill wrote:
>
>I'm wondering if anyone could point me towards
dances that really hit a
>homer - things like: Jubilation (Gene Hubert),
Thanks to the Gene (Tom
>HInds) Another Nice Combination (Tome Hinds),
Star
Struck (Nick Boulet),
>Simplicity Swing (Becky Hill), The Carousel
(GH),
The Baby Rose (David
>Kaynor), All You Can Eat (Ted Crane), 20 Below
(Bill
Olson)... dances that
>can be the bread and butter of a less advanced
evening, or just a handy
>fall-back for more capable crowds. Dances
without
down-the-hall, and
>without awkward transitions (right&left
through
-> circle L?! agh!).
Without addressing your actual question, there's a fix
for that oogy
transition that Lynn Ackerson showed me. Lynn,
you here? Hi!
Instead of a R&L through with courtesy turn,
do a
no-hands
pass-through straight across and a California
twirl
into the circle.
It feels great.
...except that people seem to have a lot of trouble actually
DOING it
because they are so used to doing a courtesy turn. (I
wrote a dance
with pass thru, twirl, men allemande. I've learned
that I have to make
people walk through that the pass thru/twirl three times and
they still
often don't do it properly.)
--
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6
http://rule6.info/
<*>
<*>
<*>
Help a hearing-impaired person: http://rule6.info/hearing.html
_______________________________________________
Callers mailing list
Callers(a)sharedweight.net
http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers
11:06 a.m.
On Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 2:15 AM, Kalia Kliban <kalia(a)sbcglobal.net> wrote:
Instead of a R&L through with courtesy turn, do a no-hands pass-through
straight across and a California twirl into the circle. It feels great.
Isn't that the normal way to do a right and left through? ;)
Jeff
3:13 a.m.
If you're looking in books or websites, it can feel like panning for gold.
A lot of effort, but sometimes you pick up gems others have missed. Or
maybe come across something you can polish up with just a little tweak.
Some books and sites are better than others. For instance, you'll have a
better hit ratio on Rick Mohr's website.
As for individual dances, here's a few I've run across.
Sticking with equal dances:
Al's Safeway Produce (Cromartie)
Ben's Spinoff #3 (Hubert)
Bicoastal Contra (Campbell)
Butter (Hubert)
Catch a Falling Star (Axel-Lute)
Centrifugal Hey (Hubert)
Cheat Lake Twirl (folk-processed version) (Shafran)
Cherokee Shuffle (Kaynor)
A Dance for Dan (Olson)
Delphiniums and Daisies (Rotenberg)
Easy Street (Isaacs)
Gypsy for Jessica (Lehmann)
Gypsy Madness (Isaacs)
Hang Time (Isaacs/AUman)
Hay in the Barn (Guthrie)
Heart of Glass (Ravitz)
Heartbeat Contra (Flaherty)
Hey Man (Balliet)
Hortensia's Cravat (Woods)
Joel's in the Kitchen (Rosen)
Judah Jig (Fenton)
Kitchen Stomp (Hill)
Less is More (Watson)
Little Girl With the Curl (Isaacs)
Mad Hey for Shadrack (Wild)
Mad, Mad World (Wild)
Mary Cay's Reel (Kaynor)
Mirror, Mirror (Kitch)
Momma Loo's Reel (Hubert)
Monday Night in Ballard (Richardson)
Moody Street (Rosen)
O'Brien's Star (Hill)
Passion Breakdown B (Ravitz)
Pedal Pushers (Dalsemer)
Pittsboro Pattycake (Hubert)
Roll in the Hey (Diggle)
Round the House (Isaacs)
Salmonella Evening (Zakon-Anderson/Cromartie)
Sarah's Journey (Hubert)
Second Time Around (Kitch)
Slice of Life (Isaacs)
Sneak Peek (Isaacs)
Square Affair (Hill)
Summer of '84 (Hubert/Schnur)
Synchronicity (Mohr)
To Turn a Phrase (Isaacs)
Turning Point (Hubert)
Treasure of Sierra Madre (Hutson)
Trip to IHOP (Claflin)
Trip to Lambertville (Zakon-Anderson)
United We Dance (Isaacs)
Walk the Walk (Isaacs)
-Chris Page
San Diego
4138
days inactive
4139
days old
contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net
10 comments
10 participants
participants (10)
-
Aahz Maruch -
Bob Green -
Chris Page -
Greg McKenzie -
Jeff Kaufman -
Joy Greenwolfe -
Kalia Kliban -
lynn ackerson -
tavi merrill -
Yoyo Zhou