I'm curious if anyone has a lead on non-white traditional square dance callers? Traditional squares are my highest preference but western shares or some contra would be worth it on a referral.
I'm looking to diversify an event and may be able to hire and fly a dance caller for an event through grants.
Please let me know about any leads.
Jane
That is - callers who talk too much .... in explaining how a dance goes.
I'm sitting on New Year's Day+1 - a Brit. so-called bank holiday - at the prestigious Southbank Royal Festival Hall. They have a free ceilidh going on in the Core Ballroom. Its moderately crowded.
I thought of joining in with the dancing - BUT .... for every dance the 'caller' is spending over 10 minutes explaining each dance - including shouting into the mic. so that he can't actually be understood anyway.
Most ceilidh 'callers' are self-taught in the UK. Some explain dances at great length then ignore the dancers concentrating on playing an instrument. But what really gets me is the lengthy instructions they impose upon the hapless dancers. Just now one dance took 20 minutes to explain - I kid you not - I had time to decide not to join in, queued for a coffee, sat down, started up my laptop, and logged into email - and the caller was STILL explaining how to do the dance. How these callers and bands get bookings is beyond me. Most appear to be on ego trips.
And the same issues arise at Folk Festivals where the callers and bands are supposed to know what they are doing.
CJB.
I'll make a modest pitch for my little booklet "Notes on Teaching Country Dancing," available for $5 from CDSS. It has a section on how to be brief, along with sections on how to help dancers memorize the dance and how to help dancers dance well; and it points out tensions among those three goals. In the introduction I remind readers that there's no recipe: you have a collection of tools, but which one to wield, when and how, is a choice to be made on the spot, taking into account who's there, what the circumstance is, why they came, etc.
-Bruce Hamilton
Re: "Have fun and make sure the dancers and the band know you are having fun. If the dance is executed perfectly by dancers who are annoyed or insulted, it's a failure. If mild chaos ensues but (most) everyone is enjoying muddling thru anyway, life is good.
Dale"
BUT having fun whilst playing an instrument on the stage whilst also calling is NOT professional - as I witnessed at the Southbank. Its having fun in a selfish way at the expense of the dancers - who are the most important folk in the room.
And Dave also brings me to another intense irritation. This is callers being patronising to their dancers during a walkthru. Most dancers, if not all, are intelligent if perhaps inexperienced. In the UK where we are so PC its insulting the terms 'ladies' and 'gents' are not acceptable only 'women' and 'men.' And at some ceilidhs you are not even allowed to talk about left or right due to political sensitivities. Too many ceilidh bands are composed of bleeding heart left wing liberals. Even the EFDSS has gone all PC in fear of losing grants from arty farty left wing orgs.
Chris B.
--------------------------------------------
On Wed, 4/1/17, Dale Wilson dale.wilson(a)gmail.com [trad-dance-callers] <trad-dance-callers(a)yahoogroups.com> wrote:
Subject: Re: [trad-dance-callers] Callers who gab on too for far too long ....
To: trad-dance-callers(a)yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, 4 January, 2017, 22:29
....
for every dance the 'caller' is spending over 10
minutes explaining each dance -
This brings to mind a quote attributed to Blaise
Pascal: Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus
longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire
plus courte.
Roughly translated
as
I have made this [letter] longer
than usual because I have not had time to make it
shorter.
In called-dance
context:
I am taking too long to explain
this dance because I haven't invested the time to
discover the best way to describe it.
A couple of notes to
myself:
A dance walk-thru is rarely the time
for a history lesson. [Although a rare short amusing
anecdote before the start of a walk-thru may occasionally be
forgiven.]
If
you come up with a really cool analogy -- for heaven's
sake, don't use it! [Teaching a ricochet hey in terms of
slices of pizza comes to mind.]
Chose the right word for the
occasion. Before a balance and petronella I say "make
a ring" not "make a circle" because if I
mention the word "circle" most dancers will start
moving [to the left!]
Do not teach to one couple or one
gender/role unless you identify them. "Swing your
neighbor below" only works for the actives. With luck
the inactives will translate, but they may well be looking
below for the neighbor *they* should be swinging.
"Ladies start a Mad Robin." leaves the gents
standing still when they should be moving.
Do not teach to individual dancers or
even sets. If, for example, you say "ladies
chain" and all but one set does it, do NOT simply
repeat "ladies chain". The ones who dutifully
followed your instructions the first time will do so again
leaving EVERYONE confused and in the wrong spot. Instead
say something like "you should now be on the side of
the set with your partner" then pause to let them sort
things out -- with possible help from the experienced
dancers around them.
Speaking of experienced
dancers:
Trust your dancers, but give them a
chance. Watch the entire room. If you see some ad-hoc
teaching going on, be quiet and let it happen. [up to a
point -- determining the point at which you step in and
reassert the fact that you are the caller comes from
experience.]
Have fun and make sure the dancers and
the band know you are having fun. If the dance is
executed perfectly by dancers who are annoyed or insulted,
it's a failure. If mild chaos ensues but (most)
everyone is enjoying muddling thru anyway, life is
good.
Dale
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#yiv0502759201
In my OP I was really referring to ONS-type events for beginners such as was inflicted upon hapless beginners at the Southbank RFH Clore Ballroom on Jan 1 2017..
This is the group I was witnessing - notice the caller in silver pants - FGS.
https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/118768-ceilidh-liberation-front-…http://ceilidhliberationfront.co.uk/
They might be subverting the lore of the ceilidh whatever - but they can't call dances.
As I witnessed there was far too much gab from their caller(s), during which the attention of their audience - the general pubic - was lost. The muffled sound system - shouting didn't help - made whatever they were saying completely inaudible anyway.
Why didn't their caller(s) use radio mics to call from the floor with the dancers? Aha - perhaps the ego-tripping of subversion performance is enhanced by remaining aloof on the stage?
If this is subversion then they succeeded. Sadly ceilidhs / folk dances are rarely held at the Southbank. This was yet another opportunity lost.
CJB
P.S. And 'no' telling them to lessen the gab and increase the dancing wasn't an option.
