Re: [Callers] Dances For Short Line

Laur, Even with great music and calling it's tough to create excitement when the hall feels empty. I've tried to think of everything I can do to make that kind of evening fun. My personal choice is to call a large proportion of contras where the dancers swing their partner not their neighbor. The logic is this: If you swing your neighbor in every dance, especially early in the evening, what is there to look forward to? With partner swing dances only, when you get a new partner you haven't swung him/her 10 times before hand. In general I usually run contras until everyone has swung their neighbors and then end the dance. So for me contras with a partner only swing is preferred when numbers are small. And I include many dances that are in other formations and also take some time to teach and dance. Here's one. Dip and Dive for Five (my name) Formation is a small circle of 4 couples numbered 1-5. There's sort of a home place but this is not critical. I learned this from Fred Park and if my memory is correct it comes form the border area between West Virginia and Ky. Couple 1 swings in the center of the set, others form a square around couple 1. Couple 1 faces up or down, heads dip and dive- takes 16 beats Couple 1 faces a side couple, dip and dive.... 8 dancers join hands and go forward and back. Go forward and back again and bring couple 1 back where they belong. Break Allemande left grand right and left. With partner, turn back (5th hand is with partner and is a left allemande). Swing partner at "home". I usually call break, figure, break, figure etc..... Tom