Empowering people to say "Yes" while also empowering them to say "No" - Contra Callers

13 Sep 2019

In discussions among dance callers and organizers, online and off, a variety of topics
come up from time to time that might be grouped under the heading of empowering people
(especially new dancers) to say "No".  Some examples:

     * Assuring new dancers that it's ok to decline an invitation
       to dance as someone's partner, and that doing so doesn't
       oblige them to give a reason nor to sit out the dance.

     * Telling people that if they're not comfortable making eye
       contact, they can look at, for example, the forehead or
       ear of the person with whom they're swinging as a way to
       avoid getting dizzy from looking at the walls.

     * Teaching how to decline a partner's or neighbor's attempt
       to lead a twirl or other embellishment.

Without downplaying the importance of empowering people to say "No", I'd
like to know if anyone has ideas about empowering people to say "Yes" (while
still empowering them to say "No").  For example:

     * While I agree that nobody should feel compelled to dance
       with any particular partner, I think it's nice to be in a
       community where most dancers are comfortable dancing with
       a variety of partners and where a single person arriving
       with no regular partner of group of friends doesn't face
       the prospect of being an involuntary wallflower for most
       (or all) of the evening.

     * While I agree that nobody should feel required to make
       eye contact if they find it uncomfortable, I rather like
       dancing in a community where people generally do enjoy
       making more eye contact on the dance floor than they do
       with random passing strangers on the street. I wouldn't
       want to emphasize teaching avoidance of eye contact to
       point of developing into a community where everyone
       habitually looks at or past their partner's ear.  (And
       no, that doesn't mean I think it's ok for dancer A to
       gaze at dancer B as if he meant to fall through her eyes
       into her very soul while dancer B very obviously is not
       responding in kind.  [Stereotyped gendered pronouns
       intentional, but the same point applies with any other
       pair of pronouns.])

     * I've sometimes heard the action borrowed from "Petronella"
       described with words such as "move or spin one place to
       the right."  To me that seems to suggest that just walking
       to the next spot around the ring is the standard version
       of the figure and that spinning is an embellishment.  I'd
       rather suggest that the spin is standard and the leaving
       it out is an adaptation for those with limited mobility,
       energy, or balance.

Perhaps some of you can think of other examples.

When someone makes two remarks--call them P and Q--that seem to suggest different courses
of action, it's tempting to read them as being connected by a "but" ("P
but Q") and to assume that the person means to imply that whichever remark came
second (that is, the one after the explicit or implicit "but") thoroughly
overrides the one that came first.  That's not my intention here.  I'd really like
to get some conversation going about helping people feel empowered to say "Yes"
and ALSO helping them feel empowered to say "No".  As an illustration that those
need not be conflicting goals, let me mention that IMO one of the things that can most
empower someone to say "Yes" is confidence that they'll be respected when
they want to say "No".

Thoughts, anyone?

--Jim