Re: [Organizers] starting a new dance series

If I may opine - I think that Barb is trying to generate discussion more about how best to train people to teach new dancers how to dance.  If I may suggest one potential focus group to ask is a new dancer.  Experienced dancers and callers may have ideas as to what works, but also I think that if you get a group of first-time dancers, or relative newbies, and ask them how they prefer to be taught dance, you might get some interesting answers. Perry ________________________________ From: Merle Mceldowney <merle.mceldowney(a)gmail.com> To: A list for dance organizers <organizers(a)sharedweight.net> Sent: Thursday, December 5, 2013 12:07 PM Subject: Re: [Organizers] starting a new dance series If someone is starting a new dance,  this is my advice: Talk to experienced callers...what is good about contra dancing is it is really not as simple as it looks. The callers are the ones that have studied this carefully. Yes it is pretty easy to learn at first and get into the line.  But putting together a dance is a  lot more difficult, then it seems. In the years as my being the chief organizer of the New York City contra dance I have taken two  callers workshops.  I never wanted to be a caller, but I was in a position to judge callers and wanted to know what my basis for judging them. The discussion about inactive dances is interesting because it shows the kind of thought  that most callers put into their programing. (I will admit that I do not think that every single caller puts work into programing - those that don't are usually not that good - or maybe used to be good). Some of our experienced dancers had made a point for a while that they did not like circle dances.  I believe they have changed their mind after realizing how callers used them as a teaching tool when we have a lot of beginners - this does happen in NYC) How to teach the swing -- it is a struggle for us as it is for other communities..a workshop during the break, experienced dancers give a pointer or two at the end of a line.  We have had an occasional worksop during the break and that has been helpful.  We are now trying to have a session in a corner during one of the earlier dance. Callers workshop - callers I have talked to put considerable thought into the workshop they teach - often the workshops are connected to the dances they intend to call.  Again, the variety in this stuff is part of what makes contra dancing so interesting and keep us all involved. I would like to advertise one callers workshop.  George Marshall, who is (even for some who may not like him) is one of the most respected callers, and is known for calling successful evenings. He seem to have chosen not to teach patterns so much - no ladies chain or right and left through, I guess he figures if he can teach a hey during the evening he can teach the other stuff.  His workshop stresses dancing.  This 24 minute workshop is something I like. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14nxFdcaKWA Also, some talked about having "dance angels" be identified by buttons.  I thought there would be a problem with it (is not there a problem with anything?).  How do we keep the people we do not want to be dance angles that we do not want to be but due to lots of experience they think they could? Merle On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 10:36 AM, barb kirchner <barbkirchner(a)hotmail.com>wrote;wrote: -- *Merle McEldowney* *212-933-0290* _______________________________________________ Organizers mailing list Organizers(a)sharedweight.net http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/organizers