Re: [Callers] How to devise a program - Contra Callers

29 Sep 2013

At 11:49 AM -0700 9/29/13, Kalia Kliban wrote:
...
 On 9/28/2013 11:46 AM, Erik Hoffman wrote:

On 9/28/2013 8:54 AM, Aahz Maruch wrote:
 One easy way of shaving time from the walkthrough
that I wish more
callers would use: *Don't* have dancers return to their starting
points, just start the dance from the place the walkthrough lands.
That can save up to thirty seconds. 
Depends on if you do one walk through or two.  With two walk throughs,
no one is out at the top.  With one, you're leaving out a top couple --
unless it's a double (or quadruple) progression dance.  I no long send
people back to the beginning if I do two walk throughs unless I deem it
a tricky dance, where seeing familiar faces again helps solidify how the
dance goes.

~erik hoffman 
The argument against starting from the place reached after the 
second walk-through is that the couple who were the top #2s or the 
bottom #1s will have gotten one walk-through in their current role, 
then sat out the second walk-through.  if you don't bring everyone 
back to their original starting places, then those folks are 
starting the dance in a role they haven't gotten to walk through at 
all.  If the dance is asymmetrical in any way, or if it's early in 
the night and new dancers haven't gotten any practice in going 
around the end of the dance, this can be really disorienting and 
cause instant breakage. 

Another way to save time is the "rolling start", if the band has been
paying attention to the walkthrough (maybe vamping a beat, and diddling
the melody here and there).  Some bands are very good at it.  The walkthrough
just seamlessly morphs into the dance before the dancers realize it.  They
think they're doing another walkthrough, and getting it right.

There is no time spent going back, and the edge effect is unaffected
(everyone will get a chance to experience it).  I called recently with
the Avant Gardeners, and they really do a smooth job of it, as do others.
It can help a lot if the musicians are also dancers, and if they already
have a tune set chosen and aren't focusing tune selection instead of
the floor during the walkthrough.

-Eric