Help for a caller - Contra Callers

14 Jul 2015

I received this note a couple of days ago. I am not qualified to answer it,
but I know there are many people here who could help. I gave her a limited
response and offered to help her out with SharedWeight - she asked me to
post here for her. You can email her directly or I will forward any posted
responses. Thanks, Cary Ravitz

"
My name is Sr. Mary Joseph and I am Catholic Sister who is very new at
calling dances.  I'm not sure if the dances I do know are even contras
technically.  I am pretty much working with the families who come here to
Mass and am looking to add to the ten or so dances that they already know.
Here are a few of our dances.

-The Virginia Reel
- The Bridge of Athlone
- Heel & Toe Polka
- Oh Suzanna

I have had success learning dances off a few YouTube videos especially the
set from Mark Geslison and Geoff Groberg.  I have a very hard time
deciphering dances that are simply written out on some web sites.   If I
knew the jargon a little better, I'm sure that would be a huge resourse.
Right now, I think I need to see it.

Because you have a much better idea about the world of contra dancing/ folk
dancing than I do, I was hoping you could point me in the right direction.
Do you know of any websites that have lots of videos of the dances?  I
could probably invest in a set of DVD's if I new it was going to be
helpful.  Is there someone I could call with my questions?

I unfortunately do not have much time to dedicate to developing this skill,
but I figure a little improvement would be better than none.  Thank you for
your time.  May God bless you.
"

Sister Mary Joseph &lt;smjmicm2004(a)gmail.com&gt;

-- 
Cary Ravitz
ravitz(a)ravitz.us