On 10/19/2012 6:06 PM, Leslie Gotfrit wrote: First, good for you! Setting up house parties is the way to get practice! I think you want 17-20 square feet per contra dancer. I'm having some trouble understanding what the "24 feet on the diagonal" measurement accomplishes. You're making me do algebra and geometry here. If you have a square room then the area is diameter**2 /2 (result in square units). So your 24-feet on the diagonal is 288 sqft and you can fit 14-17 dancers into it. However, that has to be modified by figuring out where you stand, whether the musicians take up space, whether there's any furniture, etc. It would be more helpful to have a length measurement and a width measurement of the danceable area after subtracting some room for caller and band. But assuming optional distribution, it seems like you can have a 7 - 8 couple set. If you don't have at least five couples in a duple minor set then you do a high percentage of standing out compared to dancing, and the ratio gets better as the set gets longer. (If the dancers are major dance geeks, you can do contras with four people, never stopping, and either change number and gender every time through, or change partners and head of the set every time through.) (I'm not going to push you to call squares rather than contras, because you're trying to practice contras. But it sounds like you're setting up a classic squares environment!) Good luck! -- Alan

On Oct 19, 2012, at 6:06 PM, Leslie Gotfrit wrote: Larry Jennings (_Give-and-Take_, section III-3, "Set Spacing") recommends three feet per couple (six feet per foursome) as a "just right" spacing, in which "sets are neither too crowded nor too stretched out." I agree. During crowded sessions at the Northwest Folklife Festival, I think I've counted as many as 19 foursomes in the 92' length of the floor, which would be an average spacing of 2'5" per couple. I've seen dancers in the bottom portion of the floor spaced even a little more tightly than that. The floor is made of 4'x8' panels with very conspicuous tape lines at the joints. I'm sure I've seen as many as 6 foursomes in a length of 28' (seven 4' panels widths), giving a spacing of 2'4" per couple. That's pretty darned crowded, though. If you're dancing in cramped quarters, you'll of course want to avoid dances that include "down the hall". You'll also discover which figures start to become uncomfortable as the couple spacing gets tighter. Dancers at the Northwest Folklife Festival commonly gravitate into the 8'-wide "lanes" defined by the tape joining the floor panels. This is a somewhat crowded, but workable spacing. I think a width of 10' per set is generally quite comfortable. It doesn't sound like the room you're talking about has room to have two sets and still provide space for the band or for anyone to sit, unless there's a big opening to an adjacent space that the dancing can't spread into. Unless the purpose is to avoid obstacles that are impossible or impractical to move (fireplace hearths, heavy furniture) I don't think you'll gain much, if anything, by running a set diagonally in a room of that size. A square room 17' on a side would be 24 feet (plus about one half inch) on the diagonal. Subtract 4' from each end of the diagonal in order to allow the set to be 8' wide and you're down to 16' in usable length (ok, perhaps a bit more, since a set might not need the full 8' width all the way to the end). I have nothing to add to Alan Winston's response on this subject. --Jim