Funnily enough, I wrote a dance years ago called Crickets Contra. It uses the same
progression method (ladies turn, pick up the men, men hook and go 3/4 before
whirling)---but its in reverse hands from yours.
Taking your joke seriously, I'm not certain about women/men on reversed sides, but
there was a differentiation in some communities between ladies wheeling forward and
backward for a standard couple. Learned that from Larry Edelman, although I don't
recall the other term.
Neal
Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE Device
<div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: Luke Donforth
via Callers <callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> </div><div>Date:06/20/2015
9:42 AM (GMT-06:00) </div><div>To: Caller's discussion list
<callers(a)sharedweight.net> </div><div>Cc:
</div><div>Subject: [Callers] Having settled the geography debate, lets move
on to entomology </div><div>
</div>The recent discussion about California versus Nevada twirls and all the
related variants suddenly flashed through my mind when I was writing this dance:
Whipped Butter
by Luke Donforth
Contra/Becket-CW
A1 -----------
(8) Men allemande Left 1-1/2
(8) Neighbor allemande Right 1-1/2
A2 -----------
(8) Women allemande Left 1-1/2
(2) Women scoop partner for short star promenade
(6) Gents immediately hook right elbow with new gent (ladies let go), promenade 1/4 and
butterfly whirl with partner (on home side, progressed)
B1 -----------
(16) Hey, women passing left shoulders
B2 -----------
(16) Partner gypsy and swing
The odd thing that's (to me) evocative of the previous name debate is the butterfly
whirl. If the woman is on the left of her partner, but still moving forward, is it a
butterfly whirl? Or some other species of lepidoptera?
I'll admit, I tend to use butterfly whirl for any instance of side-by-side, facing
same direction, both folks' close arm around around other's back, one person
moving forward one person backing up couples turn in place but change facing. But possibly
I'm short-changing the extensive taxonomy of Insecta. Think of all the variants we
could come up with if we branched into beetles!
Joking aside, I hope folks find the dance programatically useful and enjoyable. I think
contra dancing and calling is an organic process, and some variation in naming, calling,
and styles is healthy and fun. I don't have different names for heys depending on
larks or ravens start, or by which shoulder they start, but do use swat the flea to
differentiate from box the gnat. But in either case I teach what I want to happen in the
move.
Take care,
--
Luke Donforth
Luke.Donforth(a)gmail.com
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