I usually get 10 to 12 dances in a 3 hour evening with break. The difference seems to come down to how much time I spend teaching, since actual dance time is fairly constant.
Lines at our dance run 8 to 14 couples, so spotting a couple works well -- down and maybe a little way back. I watch the clock more to hit the break and end of evening at the right time, not for time spent dancing.
At the end of some evenings, I have 5 to 8 experienced couples and dances run much shorter - no walk through required and dancers get tired/bored quickly. In the extreme case, 6 dances in the last 50 minutes.
For variety, I called a "small plates" contra dance one evening - easy dances with short or no walk through, and iterations limited to 8 to 10 times through. That was well received by dancers, though the band (despite the warning) had to adjust their thinking after the first dance.
Tim Klein
Knoxville, TN
From: Lenore Frigo via Callers <callers@lists.sharedweight.net>
To: Maia McCormick <maia.mcc@gmail.com>
Cc: "callers@lists.sharedweight.net" <callers@lists.sharedweight.net>
Sent: Monday, April 27, 2015 3:06 PM
Subject: Re: [Callers] Dance length/dances per evening
I also use a stopwatch. As a new caller, I find it difficult to use any of the other methods because they require me to calculate and/or REMEMBER one more bit of information and my brain is already quite fully engaged. When I started out calling guest calling just 1-2 dances per night, I was fine tracking tune changes, but calling all night long, it all blurs together too much.
I don't use the stop watch to tell me when to stop the dance, but it's the perfect way to answer the question "Just how long has this dance been going on?". I usually aim to wrap it up in about 8-9 minutes, but it all depends on all those situational factors that people have already mentioned.
-Lenore