Cheat Sheet of Dance Move Substitutions? - Contra Callers

15 Nov 2017

Hello all,

I'm remembering a few workshops I'd taken with Rick Mohr a few years ago,
and also an occasion where I collected a dance from his calling. He happily
gave me the name and author of the dance, but was also quick to note that
he had substituted out different moves for 16 counts of the dance, so that
it would work better with his evening's program.

Now, someone like Rick can just do this in his head. He has a data base of
common combinations of dance moves, and where everyone ends up after
executing them. As such, he can easily make substitutions on the fly,
because he knows offhand that A+B=X+Y.**

What I'm wondering is, has anyone bothered to write down and compile a list
of common choreography substitutions? I'm thinking a spreadsheet of some
sort, where we think about the net product of various combinations of dance
moves, and categorize the combinations based on their output.

For example: Neighbor Promenade across, Ladies Chain = Long Lines Forward
and Back, Gents Allemande L 11/2.

If no one has already done this, I'll start a new thread where we can begin
to collaboratively write one up!

Thanks, All!
Angela

**Yes, the momentum in each of these scenarios is probably different, and
one might be better than another. But this depends on the rest of the
dance's choreography, and for these purposes I don't especially care. :)

***Also worth acknowledging that substituting out an entire 16-count phrase
could easily result in calling a different dance written by a different
author, but I'm more concerned about using this technique for practical
programming purposes.