This is an old thread, but recently had
interest from an active retirement community to teach contra,
which we started last week.
The active retirement community is a gated community with lots of
resources, e.g. indoor and outdoor pools, ballroom, maybe a dozen
tennis courts, etc. The community already has one square and two
line dance classes each week. We had 21 individuals at our first
contra class in an odd shaped aerobics room that was not large
enough or regular shaped enough to be able to start with everyone
in a circle. I've called maybe 10 full evenings of dances, two of
which were mostly beginners, but that was 2 decades ago. I made a
few mistakes in how I ran that first class last week, mainly in
not really getting down to the most simple basics and running
those basics several times with music in order to establish
patterns of movement. I've been contra dancing over 30 years and
watched square dancing 50 years ago. It's hard for me to realize
how complex the simplest moves are. I did talk with Cis Hinkle
Friday evening and she gave me pointers for this age group, e.g.
swings are hard, so avoid at first & teach 2 handed before
ballroom, build up from 16/32/... sequences, etc.
I'm mentioning this because:
- possibly a good demographic that can be tapped into
- ringers (experienced dancers helping out) would be very helpful
- start at simplest level and work up
Heitzso
CDSS should maybe take on a coordinating effort to be a resource
and clearing house for ideas to engage others, older and
especially young, even proactively promote these efforts.
Related I wonder if there are any efforts to actively engage
college students. I am considering approaching our local college
to see if we can’t increase participation.
Related, at least for summers, we have a couple of summer
camps that bring kids to our weekly dance, dramatically
increasing our numbers to the point that some regulars stay away
for the summer.