Jeremy,
My understanding is that here in the US choreography can't be
protected by law but the written word or the description of it can be
legally copyrighted.
It would be interesting to know what the law is in the UK.
T
This is how I learned El Capitan from Genticorum at Fiddletunes 2012
Sent from my itty bitty computer
Le Capitan Reel
Longways for four couples and extra at top of set
Couples 1&2, 3&4 dance together
A1. Circle L, Circle R
A2. Star R, Star L,
B1. Le Capitan picks a side and swings 1X with each person down that side
B2. "Le Capitan" is called and everyone finds a new partner and leftover person is new Capitan
hi,
I'm new to the list. Is there an archive of old discussions? Also, does anybody recognize this dance sequence?
improper duple
a1:circle left, swing neighbor
a2:women chain, half hey W right shoulder
b1: partner balance and swing
b2: balance a ring, petronella spin right, balance ring again, partner calif twirl
It's so generic that I can't believe that it hasn't been invented already.
Sent via the Samsung Galaxy S™ III, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone
Last night I had a five-minutes chat with some beginners at the break.
This was at the second occurrence of a newly-started series of monthly
community dances. The crowd was half-and-half experienced and new
dancers. It was mostly squares, a few circle mixers, one reel, one
contra. My wife and I and a couple of friends went as dancers to have
fun and support the venture.
After a little chit chat with a group of three couples, one of the
questions I was asked was something that is generally on the minds of
everyone trying something new: What happens if we get messed up? How
do we recover? My response was three-fold. 1) Smile. 2) If you get
behind, skip something and resynchronize. 3) Every [square] dance has
at least one place where you go back home and swing your partner, so
there is a natural point to reset.
It seems to me that the last point is something that might be worth
mentioning in any discussion of the general flow of the dance. One
feature of an easy contra dances is having one or two very clear reset
points with relatively loose timing. I think that's one of the, perhaps
subconscious, reasons that dances tat start with a neighbor balance and
swing or a neighbor do-si-do work especially well.
David Harding
Two ways to eliminate some of the time sorting through unwanted emails:
1) sort on the subject line, highlight all the unwanted emails (like "g
word"), delete all at once
2) make a folder into which all the emails from the callers' list go.
Then you can delete them when you have time, and still sort them on the
subject line and jettison all "g word" emails at the same time.
~erik hoffman
oakland, ca
On 1/22/2016 8:30 PM, Amy Carroll via Callers wrote:
>
> I'm sorry, but it really isn't enough to just ignore the posts. They
> fill my inbox and become another pile of stuff to filter through
> trying to find the email I really need/want to read.
>
> I feel as though this discussion happened already, quite recently, and
> it's just the same thing again. No one is convincing anyone. It all
> started with the simple announcement about a lecture, and then some
> snarky comments re sparked this entire discussion. Yuck.
>
> Questions:
> #1) Is it possible to recieve a daily digest of this list instead of
> each individual message? Like you can do with yahoo groups. Then I
> wouldn't mind all the junk so much.
>
> #2) Is there a facebook equivalent of this list? Those are nice,
> because when you don't have time, you don't bother to look. If you
> don't comment, you don't see the whole discussion unless you really go
> looking for it. I would appreciate the discussion, even the repeated
> discussion, that happens here a lot more if it were not in my email.
>
> Other solutions?
>
> yours,
>
> Amy Carroll
> amy(a)calleramy.com
> <mailto:amy@calleramy.com>206-330-7408
> http://www.calleramy.com/
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Callers mailing list
> Callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
> http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/callers-sharedweight.net
See if you can find El Capitan on line. I learned it from Larry
Edelman and I believe it's Fr-CA. I probably have the dance but am
to busy with the snow and critters right now to find it.
T
Actually, I wrote that. It was included in Alan’s post.
Martha
> On Jan 23, 2016, at 11:45 AM, Rich Sbardella via Callers <callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>
> Alan wrote, "As for me - as a dance choreographer - please feel free to spread my dances - they are on my website, and I wrote them to go out into the world and be fruitful and multiply and all that."
>
> Thank you Alan for your generosity.
>
> My comments below are related to the square dance and contra dance worlds, since I am unaware of ECD norms.
>
> I wish that their was a central website that could serve as a dance swap, or dance sharing site. Any caller that wanted to make their choreo available could then easily upload the dances, and folks like me could easily download or at leat view the material. If a caller chose to keep his dances proprietary, he could make that choice as well. It would be great to be able to search for dances by title and choreography as well.
>
> As a caller that called MWSD and has migrated to contras. it was a bit of a surprise how some contra calllers commercially published dance choreography for a particular set of dances. In MWSD, 64 step dances are quite the norm for singing calls, and many callers have developed quite interesting figures. Several callers have published compilations of singing call figures without crediting thei original choreographers. If I danced a figure, and I enjoyed it, it was perfectly acceptable to use that figure in a different singing call., in fact it was encouraged. I often searched websites, not necessarily for music to buy, but rather for dance figures.
>
> In the contra world, I have met callers very liberal with their dances, and they will freely provide choreography. Some are honored, or even flattered, when another caller calls their dance. Other callers are more protective of their choreography, for what ever reason. They may sell that choreography in booklet or recorded form. That is certainly within their rights. I have purchased many such booklets.
>
> However, when I go to a dance as a dancer, I am looking for smooth and/or interesting choreography to add to my collection of dances. I may take notes on several dances, but I seldom use more that one or two dances that I pick up on any given evening. I am guessing that this is ethical.
>
> Last weekend, I danced to a caller that was new to me. He has written many dances and I especially enjoyed two of the ones he called. When I emailed him about the dances, he sent me the requested choreography, along with a few others he wrote. He was more generous than I hoped for.
>
> I also have a basement full of dance books, records and CDs by many callers and bands. When it is available, I often take advantage of the opportunity to purchase material as a way to support artists. I also find much choreography on line. Youtube is a valuable resource. There are many other resources as well. Many callers have websites with their dances published for the free use of others.
>
> My cards always indicate the author of the dance, or the source, if I do not know the author, and I most often announce the author when I call dance. The concept that someone own's choreography is difficult for me to understand, since most dances incorporate elements of previous dances, or moves borrowed from someone, or somewhere. I understand that choreographers can innovate as they write dances, but really are not most, or maybe all, dances really just variations of others, either in part or in whole?
>
> Rich
> Stafford, CT
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 10:42 PM, Winston, Alan P. via Callers <callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net <mailto:callers@lists.sharedweight.net>> wrote:
>
>
> On 1/22/2016 7:02 PM, Martha Wild via Callers wrote:
> Call a dance written by someone else:
> Pretty much always, is my guess. If I note down a dance at a festival and I like it, I call it, and try to get all attributions for announcement. Maybe if there was a caller who stipulate that no one was to call their dances without express permission or proof they’d bought the book - but I don’t know of a caller doing that.
> Agreed!
>
> Publish a dance written by someone else:
> If the dance is on the author's open website, or I know the caller personally and know they are happy to have their dances spread throughout the community, then fine. If a dance is in a book that one has to buy, then never - might mention the name and author, and maybe the book, but I wouldn’t give out the dance details. Don’t know? Don’t publish it.
> I assume you're using "publish" to mean "disseminate" - give out the instructions on mailing lists, let people see your card, whatever.
> If so, agreed! To be excessively anal about it, I would disagree if "publish" meant "include in a collection I was putting out to sell" (without getting express permission from the author.)
>
>
> Modify, borrow from, a dance written by someone else?
> Always! If it’s a small change and I’m calling it I just give the author credit and say it’s a slight variant (forward and back instead of circle left for example). Using an interesting figure and sticking it in a new context substantially different from the original - no problem, but I might credit the original on a website for example - “inspired by Title, by So-and-So”.
> Agreed. And sometimes the name of the new dance can have a nod to the name of the old dance.
>
> Very different from English Country, by the way. If someone has written a dance there, and you realize that a turn single left would be so much more intuitive and flow better than a turn single right, heaven forfend that you should suggest changing the author’s original intention! Even if maybe it was an oversight originally! Liberty is NOT to be taken, at least with modern dances - though it’s a little grayer with traditional dances that various people interpret differently because the original directions are sometimes obscure.
>
> Not *always*. I have seen respected ECD leaders call things differently than they were written, although they usually call attention to it when doing it. I have also had someone ask me if a particular modification of a dance I'd written - a right-hand turn instead of a g-word - was acceptable to me, and I said "sure", and wasn't honked that he called it that way. I was pleased when he put it on the program of a ball he was calling, and then honked when the ball booklet had the modified version and listed the dance as a collaboration between the two of us.
>
>
>
> As for me - as a dance choreographer - please feel free to spread my dances - they are on my website, and I wrote them to go out into the world and be fruitful and multiply and all that.
> Thanks for that! I've called some of them and been happy to have them.
>
> -- Alan
>
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> http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/callers-sharedweight.net <http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/callers-sharedweight.net>
>
> _______________________________________________
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Call a dance written by someone else:
Pretty much always, is my guess. If I note down a dance at a festival and I like it, I call it, and try to get all attributions for announcement. Maybe if there was a caller who stipulate that no one was to call their dances without express permission or proof they’d bought the book - but I don’t know of a caller doing that.
Publish a dance written by someone else:
If the dance is on the author's open website, or I know the caller personally and know they are happy to have their dances spread throughout the community, then fine. If a dance is in a book that one has to buy, then never - might mention the name and author, and maybe the book, but I wouldn’t give out the dance details. Don’t know? Don’t publish it.
Modify, borrow from, a dance written by someone else?
Always! If it’s a small change and I’m calling it I just give the author credit and say it’s a slight variant (forward and back instead of circle left for example). Using an interesting figure and sticking it in a new context substantially different from the original - no problem, but I might credit the original on a website for example - “inspired by Title, by So-and-So”.
Very different from English Country, by the way. If someone has written a dance there, and you realize that a turn single left would be so much more intuitive and flow better than a turn single right, heaven forfend that you should suggest changing the author’s original intention! Even if maybe it was an oversight originally! Liberty is NOT to be taken, at least with modern dances - though it’s a little grayer with traditional dances that various people interpret differently because the original directions are sometimes obscure.
As for me - as a dance choreographer - please feel free to spread my dances - they are on my website, and I wrote them to go out into the world and be fruitful and multiply and all that.
Martha
> On Jan 22, 2016, at 4:03 PM, Jeremy Child via Callers <callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>
> The folk community is generally very open on sharing ideas and choreography. I suspect few of us would think twice about calling a dance that we found when someone else called it at an event. As for publishing it on the internet, we'd probably be more reticent, especially if the author has not published it, or has done so in booklets that are sold.
>
> This is generally the opposite of what happens in other dance communities, where the creation is jealously guarded. This made me wonder whether we are too lax in assuming that a choreographer is happy for us to make full use of their work. So my question on the subject of copyright of choreography is:
>
> Under what circumstances do we have the moral and/or legal right to:
> 1) Call a dance written by someone else?
> 2) Publish a dance written by someone else?
> 3) Modify, or borrow from, a dance written by someone else?
>
> Jeremy
> _______________________________________________
> Callers mailing list
> Callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
> http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/callers-sharedweight.net
While considering the replacement for gypsy I’ve recently danced to callers using gyre, eyes-swing, and orbit. Without discussing the merits/flaws to one of these or other terms I wonder how important it is for there to eventually be an agreed-upon term?
My view is that it would be good for there to be eventually one term only. A very important challenge to keeping Contra Dance series healthy is attracting and retaining new dancers. New dancers often get overwhelmed by all the terminology and if they show up at the next dance and some of the words are different it contributes to confusion - and confusion may contribute to their not returning. (I’m not talking about role-names here).
John
On Jan 23, 2016 9:20 AM, "Jack Mitchell via Callers" <
callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>
> If you go to the link at the bottom of every message you can change your
subscription status to the digest.
>
On the other hand, digests don't work very well these days because people
don't trim their posts. So you may find digests just as annoying, but for
different reasons.
Jeff
