Glad that the Shared Weight Organizers list is active again!
We produce a monthly contra dance series, whose callers are booked according to the collective priorities of our entire board. Those priorities may seem arbitrary or inconsistent, but we don't worry about that.
We also produce a monthly community dance series, whose callers are always the same. (Since inception that's been me, and in recent years another caller usually joins me - we plan and call the community dance together.)
When our group produces special dances, we have no standard criteria for who gets invited to call. We take into account the type of event (community vs. contra/ecd/square/other), and match the skills needed to the callers we might want to invite from the board's
priority list. Sometimes we have a caller lead a special dance who has already done one of our monthly contras, including on the same weekend (making it a two gig trip for them if they're from away.)
And all of this applies to how we hire musicians as well. Board prioritizes the musicians who are invited to play the contras, community dance always has an open All Comers Band led by one person, special dances could feature open bands or other bands, and
attention is given to the same things (type of dance, skills needed, etc) plus sometimes we arrange two gigs or more in a given 'tour' for folks from away.
I'm not sure what you mean by "dance community norms", but maybe I addressed it inadvertently.
Cheers,
Chrissy Fowler
Belfast Flying Shoes
Belfast, ME
From: Liz Burkhart via Organizers <organizers@lists.sharedweight.net>
Sent: Monday, January 13, 2020 10:39 PM
To: organizers@lists.sharedweight.net <organizers@lists.sharedweight.net>
Subject: [Organizers] Special Dance Caller Criteria
Howdy, I got an email from the creators/maintainers of this list which said in various places it was the musicians list, organizers list, and upon second reading, also contra callers list! Wow! I'm going by the actual name, which is organizers.
So.... organizers:
If your group has a special, regularly occurring dance (for example a monthly dance on a weekend when most of your dances are weekly on a weekday), do you have specific criteria for which of your regular callers is eligible for calling a special night?
If so, what is that criteria? If you reply, it would help if you also tell me which dance community norms you speak of. Our community (Cincinnati Contra Dance) is looking into this question.
Thank you!
Liz Burkhart