I like to teach a beginners’ session before dances and sometimes have experienced dancers join in to help out. Generally that works out pretty well, but sometimes the experienced dancers want to give their partners advice and demonstrations beyond what I’m teaching. It’s disruptive and I think rude sometimes as well. Lesson time is short enough without distractions. I would rather work with a group of new dancers on my own rather than have experienced dancers teaching twirls and other embellishments that new people don’t really need to know yet. It’s enough to learn 5+ figures and remember their unfamiliar names (chain, allemande, do si do, promenade) without extra, and at this point, unnecessary alternative or additional add-ons.
I’m wondering if anyone has tried inviting intermediate beginners to help out at beginners’ sessions? They have been to maybe 5-10 dances and should be somewhat familiar with basic figures, but still need some refresher training. They should be able to act as models for the new people, provide them some assistance getting through courtesy turns, allemandes, do si dos, etc., and get some additional slow-time dance experience for their own edification.
Jim Thaxter
Columbia, MO
Chiming in to note a pattern in our
area that differs from what some of these other dances report,
which is that at Sautee, Atlanta, and Gainesville (all NE Georgia)
dances it is common for most new dancers to arrive on time and for
there to be about as many experienced dancers that come early and
help out with the beginners' lesson as there are beginners. In
Sautee this Saturday for ContraForce they'll probably have so many
attending the lesson that the lesson circle (at the start of the
lesson) will have trouble fitting around the perimeter of the
large old gym, with some half of those being experienced dancers.
I don't know why that is (on time, roughly as many experienced
coming early). Cultural pattern? It just tends to happen so I
don't think about it.
Other notes ... re socialize before the dance ... Sautee
established itself over decade(s) as a family friendly dance. For
many years they hosted a pot luck before every dance until the
core folks who did most of the work got exhausted. I don't know
their current post-covid pattern, but pre-covid they still did pot
lucks but just for the talent and volunteers helping setup.
-Heitzso
Gainesville, Georgia
The idea I have been cogitating on for a while is to
somehow change people's perception of the starting time
causing a bit of a cultural shift. Our dance lesson is at
7:00, dance at 7:30. I would really love it if we could get
the majority of folks to embrace the idea that everyone come
at 7:00. At our last dance we had about 2-3 experienced
dancers participating in the beginners lesson. That's a
challenge with about 30 new students. I imagine new folks
could easily feel like "a tribe apart" with beginners at 7 and
everyone else come at 7:30. If we could get the majority of
our experienced dancers to come at 7:00 and help teach the
lesson that would be so grand.
Have any of you been successful in making that shift?
Changing the attitude to.... "dance starts at 7:00 and we
spend the first 30 minutes welcoming and teaching the
beginning dancers because we all know the dance will be much
more fun that way". If we could make that leap, I think
newbies would feel more welcome and likely to return. It's
unrealistic to expect everyone to show up at 7, but I am
planning to reach out to several experienced dancers to see if
we can get more of them on the floor for the lesson.
Also considering "doors open at 6:30" to give folks time to
socialize before beginning the lesson/dance at 7:00.
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...
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