For what it's worth, I went to a dance where a caller chose role-name-light dances, and had this interaction with my partner, a college-age dancer who's reasonably experienced. We were just in hands four.
(Small talk ensues, then unprompted:)
Partner: "The second dance I got confused by something the caller said. I can't remember what exactly."
(Dance had us in Long Lines, for a Larks allemande left.)
Caller: "Left hand dancer with the left hand free ... allemande left"
Partner: "That was it."
(Next move is the same role does something else, again the caller chose to not just say "larks")
Unless one is censoring one's repertoire severely, even dances with basic things like "one role allemandes after a long lines" which is in a bajillion dances, can get so much more wordy. And, if the dance has a few people need prompting mid-dance, there's no simple way to recover if you're avoiding saying a role name.
So, I'd suggest any organizer who is considering allowing positional calling take the time to understand the ramifications to what that actually means.
In dance,
Julian Blechner
In Rochester, NY, where our policy is "gender neutral calling", which includes both positional and larks/robins terminology, I haven't noticed that any dancer cares about the distinction. The real point for our dancers is clarity and economy in teaching the dance so we can start the music.
How do you feel, in a gender-neutral series, about leaving the decision of larks/robins vs. positional to the caller, so long as it's declared and publicized in advance? At least in some areas, there are not enough positional callers to have an all-positional series.
Thanks,
--jh--
I think it's important to listen to what Don Veino just wrote. Don is both a caller and organizer. It's not fair to put the responsibility for choosing role names on the callers. It's the organizers' responsibility to make decisions about our dances.
Lisa Lunt
She/her
Jamaica Plain (Boston) Gender Free Contra Dance
As a caller and organizer, this is a hot button topic for me. Please, if you are organizing a dance, take responsibility for this decision and make it clearly public to your participants in advance. I understand you may be uncomfortable making this choice and possibly want to "please everybody" by leaving it to the caller but that just sets up the worst dynamic for all.
My take is that the dance's organizers *own* the culture and implementation policies of their dance. If you would not leave it up to the caller to decide to do swing dance instead or declare the admission is half off for a given event, then you shouldn't leave such a topic to them either.
"Traditional", Larks/ Robins, positional - alternating per event, whatever - make the determination and let the people coming know in advance.
I personally will no longer accept bookings from a dance that doesn't have a stated role term policy. I will call with the terms stated (or decline the event). I had a booking for a longstanding dance which changed from decades of "Traditional" to "Caller's Choice" after booking me, with no heads up. I first heard of it when I started hearing from people advocating for one or the other terms, as "my choice". The organizers wouldn't make the call and the publicity was already out there. Bad scene for all, not the way to set up dance joy.
<snip>
Currently terminology is the caller's decision. So it goes back and forth from gendered to non gendered. That is not mentioned on the website, but I do know that at least one of our callers has requested that the Lawrence board make a decision about it so the callers don't have that responsibility and possible fall out from it.
</snip>
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