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BULL & MORE BULL, a beautifully produced 136 page perfectly bound collection of poems by Dudley Laufman about his experiences working on dairy farms, has just been published by Longhouse. Some of the pieces are set at the agricultural school where he learned to call square dances back in the day.
To order, send $18 to Longhouse
PO Box 2454, West Brattleboro, Vermont 05053
.
Dudley & Jacqueline Laufman
PO Box 61, 322 Shaker Rd
Canterbury, NH 03224
www.laufman.org
603-783-4719
jdlaufman(a)comcast.net
Education book & CD at www.humankinetics.com
Performance Calendar at www.laufman.org
Recently a school contacted me about calling a dance in their gym. After it was all set up I received this message: One last thing I forget to ask you to send us a copy of your certificate of Insurance naming Hitchcock for the March 26th dance. Most insurance companies just email it to us.
This is the first such request I have received as caller hired by an institution. Any suggestions on how to handle this request? Is this becoming common? Is this an appropriate topic for this group? Thank you!
BULL & MORE BULL, a beautifully produced 136 page perfectly bound collection of poems by Dudley Laufman about his experiences working on dairy farms, has just been published by Longhouse. Some of the pieces are set at the agricultural school where he learned to call square dances back in the day.
To order, send $18 to Longhouse
PO Box 2454, West Brattleboro, Vermont 05053
Dudley & Jacqueline Laufman
PO Box 61, 322 Shaker Rd
Canterbury, NH 03224
www.laufman.org
603-783-4719
jdlaufman(a)comcast.net
Education book & CD at www.humankinetics.com
Performance Calendar at www.laufman.org
Is this original?
Any issues?
FOR HE'S A JOLLY GOOD FELLOW
Duple Improper
A1 Balance the ring & Petronella, balance the ring and men trade
A2 Men give & take
B1 Balance the ring & Petronella, balance the ring and men trade
B2 Ladies give & take
--
Michael Barraclough
michael(a)michaelbarraclough.com
www.michaelbarraclough.com
Using just one circle of 4, use basic moves from a Big Mountain "square"
dance. (With a normal-sized crowd, a Big Mountain "square" dance has
circles of 4, in a big circle, one couple faces in, one couple faces
out, both couples slide left to progress to new neighbors. I use a
short "menu" of options -- circle left, circle right, star left, star
right, DSD N., DSD P, basket swing,
duck-for-the-oyster-dive-for-the-clam, etc. The fun is not knowing in
what order the calls will come). So, with 4 of 6 dancers, you could
have a circle of 4, doing various orders of basic moves, and each time
you finish with swing your partner, and then the "odd-folks-out" swap in
to get a chance to dance, and someone else stands out once through the tune.
Also, I once had a contra dance where only 4 people showed up at the
beginning, so I did an impromptu beginning clogging workshop (suitable
for kids or adults). We learned a few basic steps for free-style
flatfooting, and the band played great music. More folks drifted in
little by little and eventually we had enough folks for a short contra line.
Also,
With 6 dancers you can do triplets.
With 8 dancers you can do a square.
With more than 8 you can do the whole repertoire of long-ways sets --
gallopede, strip the willow, etc.
On 1/27/2016 4:42 AM, trad-dance-callers(a)yahoogroups.com wrote:
> My nightmare is there's only 5 people that show, say: a toddler, a
> teen, 2 parents and a grandparent. I have a few things we could do
> with that small number of inexperienced folks, but not enough to fill
> 2 (fun) hours.
Hi All,
I made up another dance last night. Is it new?
Becket
A1 Petronella Ring Balance; Neighbor Swing
A2 Big Oval Promenade--Clockwise (women towards center)--turn as a
couple (men now towards center); Return
B1 (looking for man with partner) Men Allemande Left 1-1/2; Partner Swing
B2 Long Lines Forward & Back; Star Right Half, Single File Prom (men
leading partner) to next Couple to form a Ring
If it is new, and not out of some misplaced memory, then it's called A
Valentine Surprise.
~erik hoffman
oakland, ca
Hi all,
One of our young dancers who has recently tried her hand at calling contras
is moving to the Raleigh-Durham area. I'm sure she'll have no problem
finding her way to the dances. But is there anyone out there I can put her
in touch with to continue working on her calling?
Thanks!
David Kirchner
St Paul MN
Over the last 100 years the English Folk Dance & Song Society has published many great dances in its magazine “English Dance & Song” and its predecessor “E.F.D.S. News”.
Having been given a pile of old magazines by Chris Turner, John Sweeney has started a project to make these wonderful dances available to everyone via the Internet at http://www.contrafusion.co.uk/Dances.html#edshttp://www.contrafusion.co.uk/Dances.html#eds.
There are over 60 dances presented so far, covering all genres. They are mostly contemporary compositions, but there are also articles about traditional dances and interpretations of much older dances.
If you can provide any more information about any of these dances, their composers, their style, their tempo or their history, then please contact John Sweeney at info(a)contrafusion.co.uk mailto:info@contrafusion.co.uk so that he can add that information to the Web pages.
For each dance John provides both the original page from the magazine and his own interpretation of the dance. Words such as "Balance", "Allemande" and "Swing" have been used by different dancing masters to mean many different things. Styles, tempos and nomenclature vary depending on the century, the country, the dance genre and countless other factors. John has tried to put the dances into words that he uses when he is calling today, and to provide other hints where possible, often using other sources. Of course you are welcome to interpret the dances any way you wish. John hopes you have fun calling and dancing some of these great old dances.
The original pages from the magazines are reproduced with kind permission of the English Folk Dance & Song Society. The dances were submitted to the magazine so as to reach as wide an audience as possible. Publishing them in this way will help to further that aim.
= = = = =
Happy dancing,
John
John Sweeney, Dancer, England john(a)modernjive.com mailto:john@modernjive.com 01233 625 362 http://www.contrafusion.co.ukhttp://www.contrafusion.co.uk/ for Dancing in Kent
