17 Jul
2023
17 Jul
'23
9:09 p.m.
A thought on the topic of dance angels...
Would it be helpful to try matching age groups of the beginners and angels?
Having a shared social reference frame (for lack of a better phrase) could
help incorporate those dancers more comfortably? I mention this as we had a
slug of incoming students from an area private school arrive at our dance
as newcomers and our friendly and helpful older crew did the community
thing - which was great but slightly put them off. The lack of folks in
their age group came up in my later conversation with them - they had a
great time but were looking to mix more with folks of their own age. Of
course that's a chicken/egg thing (I encouraged them to bring more of their
friends next time), but...
On Mon, Jul 17, 2023 at 5:00 PM Heitzso via Organizers <
organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Seconding a lot of what's been said.
My wife, Jennifer Horrocks, and I hosted 2 regional organizers retreats
back in '17 & '18 and have our next this upcoming weekend. This came up in
the two pre-covid retreats with some form of dance angels the most common
mechanism used to integrate the new dancers. (informal ambassadors or
formal special name tags varied). I agree that 60% new dancers is
difficult; that's a higher % of beginners than what most dances deal with.
My reason to chime in is to flag the *variation in demographics* for both
your experienced and inexperienced dancers affects the dance.
This upcoming Saturday ContraForce will play at Sautee's dance in N
Georgia (in the middle of nowhere) in a very old gym. Many of our retreat
folks will take that evening off to attend. It is a dance at which it's not
uncommon for 20+% to be new dancers. The most successful callers (in my
opinion) have, after the lesson, started off with easy but not trivial
contras and steadily built up from there which takes advantage of the
experienced dancers knowledge and doesn't bore the experienced dancers to
death.. 20% is not 60%. Mentioning because there are always beginners at
that dance and not all callers handle them well.
I believe it's important to know the age and hence physical and mental
capability of the new dancers. Sautee's dance tends to be family oriented
so the new (& experienced) dancers range in age from teens to seniors. I
went to a ContraForce dance at Clemson University several years ago. The %
of new dancers was around your 60%, but the new dancers were entirely
college students. The caller was a student and not a solid caller. The new
dancers took incredibly quickly to the dance. *60% beginners? No problem!*
I was at a River Falls Lodge pre-covid dance packed with so many lines of
dancers that it was easy to get confused with what's up and down and
sideways. Dancers were mostly students (under 25?) and, I'd guess, 40%
beginners. Caller came late so no beginners' lesson. The caller just
started everyone off with a simple contra and built up from there. No muss.
No fuss. Worked quite well. I believe the caller's calmness and just doing
it worked ... never any question that it wouldn't.
Another data point is Lake Eden Arts Festival which, pre-covid, had 5,000
people attending. Their gym, "Brookside", had contra dances with (at peak)
some 400 dancers. Many (??%) dancers are drunk/high beginners who drop in
since they're already there enjoying the weekend. They have fun for awhile
then leave. Don't know what to say about it. It is what it is.
Another data point that I've heard about is a tourist oriented Virginia
city in which the contra dance location was, for awhile, downtown in the
tourist district. They struggled with older non-contra tourists
overwhelming their small dance. I believe their solution was to move the
dance out of the tourist center.
Wishing everyone well as we keep the dance going,
-Heitzso
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