Luke wrote:
Hi Paul,
Good topic, thanks for starting it.
I remember being at a crowded dance in Montpelier with
Nils Fredland
calling, and he did 4 face 4 dances. I was initially surprised, but it made
good use of the space. By merging two sets laterally it eliminated the space
that would normally be between those sets and made folks aware of 7 other
dancers instead of 3 other dancers.
I think it depends on the geometry of the hall, but 4
face 4 dances can be
good, non-obvious, efficient use of space. Just something to add to that
part of your tool-box.
To expand rather than contradict - 4-face-4s, especially the ones that sort
of turn into squares for a moment - are very vulnerable to compression up and
down. I fairly recently danced one in hall that wasn't quite long enough for
the crowd, and I emerged somewhat bruised. (People had fun, but it wasn't
super-safe.)
-- Alan