Hi there,
Who wants to take bets that the answers to this poll
shake out thusly:
1. one walk-through - East and West coast
2. two walk-throughs - all others
I must contradict this conclusion. Maine is definitely the East Coast. Dancers here
don't generally seem to care if there are two walkthroughs or one. (At least most
dancers, at most of the regular dance series.)
That said, whether the majority actively cares or not, I take Dan's points to be a
reminder to aim for calling excellence in general, and in this case, to look at why one is
doing two walkthroughs. If it mostly comes down to a failure on my part, I'd hope to
make improvements in my calling practice such that I could do one walkthrough in the
future (for a similar dance, with similar dancers, at a similar event.) While there are
some regular contra series where I might do two walkthroughs every time anyhow (and start
the dance with Galopede) it would be nice to have that necessitated by the situation and
not weaknesses in my calling practice.
Of course, we callers are human (!) and for me, if I'm juggling too many things during
the night (a band with wildly inconsistent tempos, an inexperienced sound person, a hall
packed with hopping and loudly chatty dancers, sleep deprivation, program plan that's
completely inappropriate, etc.), it's a blessed thing to be able to rely on two
walkthroughs to get us all through to 11pm. And if everyone else (band, dancers, sound
person) is smiling after a night of two walkthroughs, well, it can't be all that
important in the scheme of things. Seems like they are all happier w an imperfect caller
than w no caller at all.
Chrissy Fowler
Belfast, ME
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