8 Aug
2008
8 Aug
'08
5:11 a.m.
I have a whole bunch of thoughts on what makes a program varied or
unvaried. I see, after having written what follows prior to scrolling
down and reading below, that Alan and I have very similar ideas -
however, I'll just leave what follows here even if it goes over some
of the same ground, i.e., beginnings, transitions, and distinctive
figures. Oh well, here's my take:
I like to see variation in the types of transitions, like star to do-
si-do, or California Twirl to face next neighbors, or circle left and
pass through, or slide left to next etc. in a Becket. Too many of the
same transition can seem unvaried. To me, starting two dances in a
row the same way feels unvaried as a dancer. Haven't you ever been to
programs where every dance starts "Balance and swing your neighbor?"
I like to vary the kinds of swings in a program - some balance and
swings, one or two gypsy into swing, just plain swing from a do si do
or an allemande, sometimes women swing or men swing for variety. As a
dancer, I'm afraid I'm not really fond of swinging both partner and
neighbor in every dance. It just gets too darn tiring. Watch everyone
leave early on a hot night in San Diego without air conditioning. So
I try to mix up the program with a dance with "both" swings, and
dances with partner only swings. I even do some fun dances with
(gasp) active couples in them - usually double progressions, but also
an active dance done late on a hot evening, or early with a small
crowd, can have unusual choreography that you won't see in other
dances and that is fun to do as a dancer. I also like to do dances
where the #1 couple swings and later the #2 couple swings, so both
get a chance. As far as repetition of figures - some figures you can
get away with lots of repeats during the evening - like forward and
back in long lines, or ladies chain, or right and left through. Sort
of bread and butter figures. Other figures dancers start to notice -
a fair number of circles can be OK, but when every dance has one,
it's pretty obvious. Some figures are distinct and you don't want to
do more than two (maybe one) dances with them - petronellas, box the
gnats, wave balances, whole set circle left - those sorts of things.
And if you like your program, and you've got a lot of heys in it, OWN
your program, and say - tonight's theme is - wait for it - the HEY!
We'll be trying all manner of heys and ways in and ways out of heys.
Then it becomes something to look forward to and notice the
differences and feel from dance to dance.
Of course, that said, many dancers don't even notice if the same
dance is repeated in the same evening - this from personal experience
when two callers did that in a shared evening. A couple dancers
remarked when asked that it did seem somewhat familiar.... But even
if they don't consciously notice repetition, variety will still add
that spice.
One thing to be avoided though, is picking slightly similar repeating
figures in two different dances - like circle left, ladies chain,
women do-si-do and then two dances later do circle left, ladies
chain, women allemande right - even if the rest of the dance is
wildly different, people get pretty quickly entrained on the flow of
the first set and will keep wanting to do-si-do in the second set. So
I try to check my program for those sorts of repeats. I've felt the
magnetic attraction of the entrained movement as a dancer and seen
people stumbling with the second set as a caller - so avoid that.
That's enough thoughts on variety for now... Have fun planning your
programs.
Martha
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Today's Topics:
1. What Makes A Program Varied (Rickey)
2. Re: What Makes A Program Varied
(Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing)
3. Re: Chris's message (J L Korr)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 17:26:57 -0400
From: "Rickey" <holt.e(a)comcast.net>
Subject: [Callers] What Makes A Program Varied
To: <callers(a)sharedweight.net>
Message-ID: <000501c8f80b$27bdfbb0$020fa8c0@maxx>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
OK all,
What determines if a program is varied? I originally thought that the
number of times a figure occurred in an evening was a pretty good
clue, but
now ???????????? Here are dances that feel different, in programs
that feel
varied, yet look at how many times some figures are repeated in an
evening.
VARIETY IN PROGRAMMING
What is it?
What is variety in programming determined by? I find that I can
include
many dances that have the same figures and still feel that I have a
varied
program. Below are three of my recent programs and the number of
times in
that evening that a given figure occurs. I arbitrarily started
with the
idea that more than five occurrences of a figure in an evening
might be a
problem. Obviously, I excluded swings and balance and swings. By
accident
no Circle left ??s were included. I have also not considered here
where in
the dance the figure occurred. Despite several figures occurring very
frequently in an evening, the programs still felt very varied to
me, and
some dancers expressed that as well.
What do you think?????????????
All programs had 14 dances in each. Some of the names are
approximate. Most
dances were contras, a few were circles, a few were set dances.
Program 1 for Beginners ? Circles were in 9 dances, at least 1 do-
si-do in
7, Stars or hands across in 7 dances. Program: Pride of the
Dingle, Jolly
Roger, No Dos, Family Contra, Fiddle Hill Jig, Ease, Green Jig,
Fancy French
mixer, Flutterbys, Midwest Folklore, Reading Reel, Yankee Reel,
Handsome
Young Maids, Greenfield 2 hand
Program 2 for Beginners ? Balance the ring in 5, Circles in 8, Do-
si-do in
8, Down the Hall 4-in-line in 6, Star or hands across in 10 dances.
Program: Cincinnati Reel, Haste to the Wedding, Family Contra, Anne?
s Visit,
Fiddle Hill Jig, Belles of Auburn, Malden Reel, Handsome Young Maids,
Midwest Folklore, Bride and Groom, Road to Boston, St. Lawrence
Jig, New
Friendship Reel, Ease
Program 3 for Intermediate dancers ? ladies chain in 12 of the 14
dances.
Program: The Baby Rose, Summer Sunshine, Dancing Bear, Betty Mac?s
Reel, A
Rollin? and A Tumblin?, Slapping the Wood, Fisher?s Jig, Box-the Gnat
Contra, Weave the Line, Ben?s Brilliance, That Special Someone, 40
Mohr
Years, Flowers of April, Trip to Lambertville.
Rickey Holt,
Fremont, NH
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:52:56 -0700 (PDT)
From: Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing
<winston(a)slac.stanford.edu>
Subject: Re: [Callers] What Makes A Program Varied
To: Rickey <holt.e(a)comcast.net>
Cc: callers(a)sharedweight.net
Message-ID: <01MY1R8VJDAYA0JPQX(a)SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=iso-8859-1
OK all,
What determines if a program is varied? I
originally thought that
the
number of times a figure occurred in an evening was a pretty good
clue, but
now ???????????? Here are dances that feel different, in programs
that feel
varied, yet look at how many times some figures are repeated in an
evening.
VARIETY IN PROGRAMMING
What is it?
What is variety in programming determined by? I
find that I can
include
many dances that have the same figures and still feel that I have
a varied
program. Below are three of my recent programs and the number of
times in
that evening that a given figure occurs. I arbitrarily started
with the
idea that more than five occurrences of a figure in an evening
might be a
problem. Obviously, I excluded swings and balance and swings. By
accident
no Circle left ??s were included. I have also not considered here
where in
the dance the figure occurred. Despite several figures occurring
very
frequently in an evening, the programs still felt very varied to
me, and
some dancers expressed that as well.
What do you think?????????????
Over in English Country Dance land, where dances are tied to
specific tunes, we
think a varied evening has variety of music (different keys, meters
(we get
2/2, 2/4, 4/4, hornpipe, waltz, minuet, polka, 3/2, and slip-jig
choices)),
tempi (we can range from maybe 85 to 110 bpm), mood, formation
(triplet, three
couple circle, two-couple set, four-couple longways, five-couple
longways, four
couple square, square with an extra couple in the middle, longways
duple,
longways triple, single circle, Sicilian circle, double circle,
etc, but we
don't generally do scatter mixers), complexity, and figures. I
think David
Millstone gets a bunch of this formation variation into his contra
dance
calling, but not many people do.
So I used to worry about this in contra calling,a nd I do, still,
worry about
it a bit if I've got a band that only plays old-timey, but, really,
the variety
concern is somewhat overrated.
In contra, the musical variety stuff is up to the band, but you
still get to
futz with mood - is the dance playful, flirtatious, incredibly
flowy? Is it
equal or unequal? Do you stick with your partner throughout or
lose and regain
your partner? Do you stick with one other couple for 32 bars or
travel around?
Is there a trail buddy?
But if you're going to be doing, y'know, contras (longways dances
with minor
sets, whether that's improper/indecent/proper/duple/triple) the
things that most
non-caller contra junkies will notice are
(a) How each round starts - if every single dance begins with
"balance and swing neighbor" it'll not only seem like it's
all the
same damn dance, you'll screw up the muscle memory and for
the next
move they'll want to do the same thing they did in the last
dance.
So don't stack up dances with the same first figure.
(b) transitions - how do you get on to the next couple? If
they're all
pass through right shoulder, or all California Twirl and
face the
next, etc, etc, that'll seem pretty similar. (Mixing in some
Beckets will typically open up the transition menu.)
(c) distinctive figures. If a dance has 8 bars of something
unusual or
distinctive - Petronella turns, balance short waves f&b and
go on
to the next wave - grand right and left around the whole
outside
of the ring - Rory O'More turns - then you don't get dinged for
boringness for having circle / star / r<, much less
ladies' chain/ hey for 4. Also, the extra-twirl crowd
doesn't get
bored by LC or H4 because they get to embellish.
Figure count is probably worth noticing, but what makes things dull
is a whole
bunch of things that feel the same. Circle left to start a zigzag
feels
different from circle left half and slide one couple and circle
some more feels
different from circle left 3/4 and swing partner. If the kinetics are
different, it's different.
For ONS, mess around with easy formations (scatter mixers, big
circles, etc)
but _minimize the number of different figures_. Circle, star,
swing, pass
through, down the middle, trade with partner, trade back, allemande
right,
allemande left. You don't really need much more, figure wise, and
they'll
typically be happy just to be dancing.
If you're doing an explicitly contra evening for a roomful of new
contra
dancers, variety isn't your problem. Don't throw a whole bunch of
different
figures or weird progressions or whatever at them just to be
varied. Build
your program to introduce a few figures in the course of the
evening, but I
don't think you should look at your figure matrix, notice that you
didn't do
"Give and Take", and feel like you've failed. They're dancing with
different
people, to different tunes; that's all the variety most of them need.
-- Alan
--
======================================================================
=========
Alan Winston --- WINSTON(a)SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU
Disclaimer: I speak only for myself, not SLAC or SSRL Phone:
650/926-3056
Paper mail to: SSRL -- SLAC BIN 99, 2575 Sand Hill Rd, Menlo Park
CA 94025
======================================================================
=========
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 00:01:46 -0400
From: J L Korr <jeremykorr(a)hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Callers] Chris's message
To: <callers(a)sharedweight.net>
Message-ID: <BLU140-W5F920CB7338D23F2A7D74C7750(a)phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Chris, I want to thank you for posting such a thoughtful and
detailed evaluation of a set of programs that obviously didn't go
quite as you had hoped. It was helpful for me to see what did and
didn't work for you, and why. As I know that you reflect carefully
on each program you call and what you can learn from the
experience, I have no doubt your next calling at a festival will go
much more smoothly.
Jeremy Korr
Rancho Cucamonga, CA / Woods Hole, MA
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Martha Wild