Re: [Organizers] Variety - Organizers Digest, Vol 38, Issue 1 - Musicians

23 Aug 2012

Hi Jeff.

In Kalamazoo MI {http://people.albion.edu/ram/cdk/ } we (CDK)offer a once a month (1st
Sunday afternoon) "Just for Fun" dance.  That is an anything goes day.  We have
a 2nd Saturday regular contra/square series and an every 3rd Wed English dance series, and
our 4th Saturday will be typically standard contra and square but it may include an Open
Mic, an Advanced dance, a special afternoon dance attached with the evening dance with a
special out of town band or caller.  It might be a mixed event with an English afternoon
and a contra/square dance in the evening. You might note on the calendar that based on the
availability of the caller/ band we may make use the 2nd Saturday for a special dance,
maybe with a potluck.

It has never caused confusion because of the way it has been advertised. None of it has
ever caused confusion.  I think because we do an excellent job of promoting our calendar,
and website, sending out calendars for all members, making announcements and paper
schedules available at all dances and schooling our attendees and members to know
they'll get the best of whatever is available if in fact they don't look at
what's coming up...

This is how our "Just for Fun" is advertised in our calendar: 
An afternoon of variety in couple dances & set dances, for example waltz, contra,
English, squares, etc. Singles & couples welcome. Learn style & skill in a relaxed
atmosphere. It’s a workshop and a party! 

If there is a "specialty" that will take prominence we might make special note
that, for example, in honor of St. Patty's day this month will be Irish Ceilidh and
set dancing.  So if it were going to be a Techno dance then I'd clearly advertise and
define it so someone doesn't show up for something they will grouse about and those
that come for the uniqueness will bring others.

Laurie Pietravalle
West MI

...
  Message: 1
 Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2012 13:46:42 -0400
 From: Jeff Kaufman &lt;jeff(a)alum.swarthmore.edu&gt;
 To: A list for dance organizers &lt;organizers(a)sharedweight.net&gt;
 Subject: [Organizers] Variety 
...
  Back in March, BIDA [1] went to twice a month, adding
1st
 Sundays in
 addition to 3rds. These are pretty much all contras, but we
 also do
 occasional special events in different styles. I've heard
 from various
 dancers, though, who want more special events. We'd like to
 do more,
 too. Practically, with the way we currently organize them,
 we're just
 not going to be able to have them more frequently because
 the overhead
 of a stand-alone event is too much.

 So, we're considering keeping our 3rd Sundays as a monthly
 contra
 dance series and making 1st Sundays be a "special events
 series". This
 would be things like techno-contra (Spark in the Dark),
 english,
 ceilidh, old time squares, scottish, swing, unusual
 formation
 contraish dances, family dance, international, kerry/irish,
 lots of
 different styles.

 Many of these would probably have some contras mixed in, and
 we had an
 english-contra dance we had a while ago that went well, but
 the more
 forms you want to mix in an evening the fewer bands and
 callers are up
 for it. We also might do these in partnership with other
 organizations, looking for a larger audience and trying to
 help
 dancers of both groups find other dance styles they might
 enjoy.

 Have other groups tried things like this?  Would a
 pattern like "3rd
 Sundays are contras, 1st Sundays anything goes" be too much
 for people
 to remember? [2] Would it hurt our community, because people
 who have
 come to expect one thing from BIDA (contras) would come to
 1st Sundays
 expecting that and be disappointed?

 Jeff Kaufman
 Boston MA