Organizers May 2015

organizers@lists.sharedweight.net

1 participants
6 discussions

Re: [Organizers] What is the main goal of your dance series or organization?

by David Kirchner via Organizers

Here is the vision statement for our family dance series. Our contra series does not have such a statement (but IMHO it should). Tapestry Family Dance Vision 1. Fun. Dances will be fun! 2. Inclusiveness. Dances are open to all, regardless of age or dancing ability. The smallest children will be welcomed, and dances will be designed to enable them to participate in some fashion. 3. Community. A key purpose of the dance is build community among parents and children and to create interconnections between younger dancers and the contra dance community. Dances and activities will be designed to foster shared experiences and interactions. 4. Familiarity. The dances presented will be similar each month, with a number of core dances being repeated frequently. Children should be able to request favorites and callers should (most of the time) be familiar with the dances requested because they will be working from a common repertoire. 5. Safety. Dancers must be safe. Grown-ups are required to remain with the children they are supervising. Children should not be swung off their feet by grown-ups; grownups should not attempt to dance with others while carrying children on their shoulders. All snack food provided should be clearly labeled with ingredients for those with allergies. 6. Development. Over time, young dancers who come regularly should gradually learn key dance skills: a. Distinguishing between different sections of music b. Dancing in harmony with those around them c. Anticipating upcoming dance moves without dancing them prematurely d. Calmly and good-naturedly resolving mistakes or confusion e. Comfortably dancing with a variety of partners f. Young dancers interested in calling or playing music will be mentored to the extent possible Callers will not expect young dancers to come with these skills or to master them instantly. Any dance may involve young dancers at many different levels of development. David St Paul, MN

10 years

What is the main goal of your dance series or organization?

by Marie-Michèle Fournier via Organizers

Hi all! It's a pretty simple question to articulate, but for us the answer is not so easy to put in words, so I am looking at other places for inspiration! Thanks! Marie ContraMontreal

10 years, 6 months

talent info sheet and contracts - thoughts and queries???

by Emily Addison via Organizers

Hi Fellow Organizers, As many of you know (because I've already posted on this!), Ottawa Contra is trying to improve our talent info/contracts. I've been working with versions from your various dance communities as well as ideas that came up at the Puttin On The Dance session re talent. I've attached our draft as it is now and would love to get your thoughts on a few aspects. See below for five questions. :) Emily 1. *Does our cancellation policy look fair? Anything we should do different?* *If Ottawa Contra has to cancel a gig within three months of the event, we will compensate the talent for the full agreed upon amount. If the caller or band needs to cancel the gig, please let us know ASAP. Bands can substitute a member if agreed with Ottawa Contra (no additional pay). If you don't perform, we don't compensate. Please note that cancellation is difficult for us as we promote all bands/callers over the whole season.* 2. *I'm trying to open up channels for us to give feedback to the occasional caller/band when things don't go well. Does our wording on 'feedback both ways' seem good in terms of being able to approach post-gig to provide comments if there are particular issues (in addition to the emails we send when it goes really well!).* *Callers & Bands - Feedback both ways:* *We would like to foster an open dialogue of feedback from you to us and from us to you! If you are uncomfortable with feedback, please let us know ahead of time. And, if you have any feedback for us regarding any aspect of your experience with Ottawa Contra, please begin the dialogue!* 3. *Sit Ins/sharing mic... ... we'd like to (if talent willing) have options for a caller and 1-2 local musicians to get a bit of experience in order to build capacity. See what you think of how we suggest that. **BAND: · 'Sit ins'* *: If you are willing, 1-2 of our local contra musicians would love to 'sit in' with you for 1-2 sets. This is a purposeful attempt on our part to build capacity in our dance musician community – having locals get to feel your amazing energy will help them a lot! This is only if you are willing and we'll confirm with you ahead of time. (These sit ins could be mic'd or not.) CallErs: If you are willing, we would like to arrange a time of your choice during the evening where one of our local callers could call one dance. We would love for you to take a few notes and provide them with some constructive feedback on what they did well and what they could tweak (i.e., stop-start-continue). Our local callers would really benefit from calling with varied professional bands and from your tips! * 4. *Caller archiving: This is an idea from Belfast and Concord. What do you think?* *Archiving:* We have started an archive that lists past programs which you may refer to before/during the dance. Please record your called program there – name of dance, composer/author, comments, etc. This is shared with other visiting callers to get a sense of pacing, types of dances called, and challenges they come across . 5. *Gender-mixer dance... ... this is something some people on our committee want to try to help women especially who are scared about learning the gents role (it's true - we have many and 1 workshop a year isn't doing it). Also other reasons as some folks like to play with gender roles. However, we aren't interested in becoming a gender free dance and we have a lot of beginners every time who get confused when people change roles too much (it already happens a bit). What do you think?* *Gender-mixer dance:* (Optional ) In the second half, we would like you to announce (a full dance ahead) that there will be a gender-mixer for those who want it. Randomly choose a line for folks who want to play opposite gender roles, swap roles throughout the dance, etc. A few dancers do this regularly but some folks who are learning the opposite gender role want a more safe time to experiment where they won't be embarrassed if they make mistakes, etc.

10 years, 6 months

Bringing in more English dancers

by David Chandler via Organizers

This has been a difficult year for English dancing in NYC, with lots of people not dancing because of disability, weather, etc. We are looking for ways to get more dancers to come and join our community on a continuing basis, and want to survey dancers (those who came only once, those who came for a while and dropped out, and long-timers) about what might make dancing more attractive. Rather than reinvent the wheel we wondered if any other communities have done such surveys, and/or found good ways to expand their English dancing community. Thanks for your help! I'll post this separately on ECD. David Chandler

10 years, 6 months

performer communication

by Chrissy Fowler via Organizers

I was recently reminded of how thoroughly the Chattahoochee Country Dancers appear (at least from their comprehensive, and very entertaining, web materials) to communicate with performers. http://www.contradance.org/html/band-caller-info.php Cheers, Chrissy Fowler . . . Chrissy Fowler | 207.338.0979 chrissyfowler.com | westbranchwords.com | belfastflyingshoes.org (1st Friday Community & Contra Dances)

10 years, 6 months

Saying "no"

by Jeff Kaufman via Organizers

When you're handling booking for bands or callers, there are generally some proper you don't want to book. When the reason is straightforward it's not too hard to communicate ("you need to get more experience; play some smaller dances and get back to me" or "on even days our series only books local callers, ago the dates you suggested don't work, but what about DATE?") but sometimes the reason is "we don't think you're very good, and you've been doing enough dances that we don't think booking you for ours will help you improve"? I'd like to just say "no" without getting into reasons, but everything I write sounds either too short and curt or overshary. How do other bookers handle this?

10 years, 6 months

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Organizers May 2015