New subject: How do you, as organizers, support/encourage/manifest inclusivity at your dances?

17 Dec 2018

I tossed a few bullet points up there, but figured I'd elaborate here;
since it's more conducive to discussion.

Having everyone who is currently in the hall involved in any lesson before
the regular dance does a lot to help inclusion. It lets everyone meet more
folks than during the mill around between dances, and sets the expectation
that new dancers will dance with experienced dancers and vice versa
(assuming you're including partner mixing, which I strongly support in most
circumstances). I try to keep my lesson to less than 15 minutes, so it's
not a big obligation to the experienced dancers in the hall (and continue
to welcome people to join if they get there late).

Wherever your dance falls in terms of the terms used for the different
roles (i.e. where you are after a swing), you can emphasize that anyone can
dance either role. Modelling that as dancing organizers (two folks who
present as male dancing together), as well as asking callers to announce it
from the mic "I'll be using the terms Gents and Ladies to refer to dance
roles, but anyone can dance either role."

On Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 3:51 PM Luke Donforth &lt;luke.donforth(a)gmail.com&gt;
wrote:

...
  I tossed a few bullet points up there, but figured
I'd elaborate here;
 since it's more conducive to discussion.

 Having everyone who is currently in the hall involved in any lesson before
 the regular dance does a lot to help inclusion. It lets everyone meet more
 folks than during the mill around between dances, and sets the expectation
 that new dancers will dance with experienced dancers and vice versa
 (assuming you're including partner mixing, which I strongly support in most
 circumstances). I try to keep my lesson to less than 15 minutes, so it's
 not a big obligation to the experienced dancers in the hall (and continue
 to welcome people to join if they get there late).

 Wherever your dance falls in terms of the terms used for the different
 roles (i.e. where you are after a swing), you can emphasize that anyone can
 dance either role. Modelling that as dancing organizers (two folks who
 present as male dancing together), as well as asking callers to announce it
 from the mic "I'll be using the terms Gents and Ladies to refer to dance
 roles, but anyone can dance either role."

 On Sun, Dec 16, 2018 at 10:50 PM Winston, Alan P. via Organizers <
 organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote:

  Organizers --

 What do you do or have seen others do to build inclusivity at your
 dances?

 What is your vision of inclusivity?

 Culturally, how do you balance a culture of consent (nobody *owes*
 anybody else a dance, you can refuse without explanation at any time and
 dance with somebody else) with a culture of inclusion where anybody who
 walks in the door, whether they're new dancers, middle-aged women, newish
 dancers in the zone between "let's take care of the first-timers" and
being
 experienced dancers who can take care of  themselves, etc. can be genuinely
 welcome and can dance as much as they want to without feeling like they're
 part of an out group?

 I was discussing this with Seth Tepfer and he set up a google doc to
 collect ideas.  It'd be rude to make people on the list go there to
 participate in this discussion and that format is bad for clarifying
 questions anyway, so you may certainly update that document but you can
 also just post here and I'll try to add new ideas to the doc.

 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vwc-weK43t9nJ94LJIQg6UxiUeP8iqT1_VvqZO7…

 Doc contents right now:

 '

    1.

    Caller can be encouraged to program circle and scatter mixers. After
    the circle or scatter mix, the caller can say 'keep this parter for the
    next dance.
    2.

    Callers and dance organizers can reserve the first 1/3 of the evening
    to only dancing with new dancers. Role model this behavior for other
    experienced dancers
    3.

    During the early 1/3 of the evening, the organization can welcome
    everybody, and applaud the new dancers
    4.

    Nametags for everyone.
    5.

    We used to have nametags saying (it's my 1st/2nd/3rd time here: ask
    me to dance)
    6.

    Caller's can remind folks to ask the people sitting out to dance.
    7.

    Try to discourage booking ahead. Talk about why booking ahead is
    detrimental to your community - on listservs, in signs, at post dance
    gathering.

 (I'm an organizer for the Palo Alto Contra dance, an English dance
 series, and some camps, and an English/Victorian/Regency/Contra caller.
 Even if what organizers can do is what callers can do, the organizers can
 tell the callers to do what they can do, so caller suggestions are
 appropriate here.)

 -- Alan
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 --
 Luke Donforth
 luke.donforth(a)gmail.com

Re: [Organizers] How do you, as organizers, support/encourage/manifest inclusivity at your dances?