If you have a website or public contact information out there, you might see messages like these.
First one: forwarded from a dance community to me.
"Hello, My name is Mary I got your information online for dance classes. I'm organizing a surprise dance (like flashmob) for my daughter's wedding, So i want you to teach the Bridesmaids choreography. Let me know if you can do this?"
I sent a request for more info, and got the hook message:
"Thanks for the response am only available via email or text due to my hearing problem okay. Wedding is on the 24th of JUNE. The ladies are local. There are 10 Bridesmaids(all ladies) and i want them to choreograph a song by "John Legend" titled "All of me". I want lessons to be at your studio. I'll prefer Tues&Thurs 11-1pm, if that's okay with your schedule. Though the ladies are fully committed to this training, so their timing is pretty flexible. They are not professionals and have no experience in dancing. What is the total cost for 2 hour rehearsals twice a week for 3 weeks? Actually I don't have a particular style in mind so i want you to help me choose a suitable one. I trust your judgement on that considering it being your field of expertise. I was thinking of this version https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=D2CYedstsiY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2CYedstsiY if the original won't work. Point is my daughter loves the song so i'm doing this for her. Does the total cost include studio rental fee? What is your full-name, your cell phone and studio address for the private transport driver i'm organizing to locate your place when they are coming. Can i make reservation with my credit card? Cause i won't be coming in with the ladies due to my current health status. I'm currently under intensive care in preparation for my surgery. I'm doing the booking since the whole surprise is my idea and i will be responsible for all payment.
Regard,
Mary"
A friend who actually does choreograph dance routines says, "It is the exact same scam as my friend ran into in his computer business. Including the intensive care thing. Word for word"
Be careful out there.
--Karen D.
don't have a dance studio
This is my favorite square dance focused festival of all time. If you can
find a way to be there, you will not regret it. Today is the last day for
early bird rates on the super affordable tickets. If you can't afford it,
but want to get there, we can make it happen. Please forward to friends of
old time music and dance and try to send a contingent to represent your
community.
T-Claw
https://mountaindancetrail.org/364-2/https://www.facebook.com/events/161612907668582/http://bittersoutherner.com/my-year-in-helvetia-west-virginia/
"DARE TO BE SQUARE
HELVETIA, WV
May 19th - 21st 2017
A weekend for aspiring and advanced callers, dancers and musicians in a
small swiss town in the mountains of West Virginia! Workshops will be held
Friday, Saturday and Sunday with Bill Ohse, Will Mentor, Lou Maiuri, Mary
Alice Milnes, Gerry Milnes, T- Claw, Taylor Runner, Jesse Milnes, Ellen &
Eugene Ratcliffe and many others yet to be determined! There are two
beautiful dance halls and there will be many opportunities to practice
calling! Evening public square dances will be held on both Friday and
Saturday night with late night jam sessions at all hours. The High Ridge
Ramblers with Dave Bing, Andrew Dunlap and Mark Payne will play the Friday
night square dance! Saturday night square dance will be Jesse Milnes and
friends. Workshops will be held in Helvetia Fiddle Tunes, Calling 101 &
102, Helvetia Baking, Big Circle Square Dances, Glenville Style Squares,
Flatfooting 1 & 2, West Virginia Ballad Singing, Play Party Games, Calling
Feedback Sessions much more!
REGISTRATION is open!!
https://mountaindancetrail.org/364-2/
$65 prior to May 1st and $75 at gate.
FREE to folks under 18 years of age!
Please let me know if you can't come due to not being able to afford the
admission price, we can work something out. There are several volunteer
opportunities for partial and full tuition. There are also several
scholarships available to eager beginning callers! Also, We are in need of
a few more musicians to play for workshops. Contact hillreb1(a)gmail.com for
inquiries.
HOUSING - $10-15 suggested donation per person for rustic camping for the
whole weekend.
Rooms available for rent at the Bee Keeper Inn and the Kultur Haus Helvetia
reserve yours before it's too late. "
Hello
There is a dance named "Diamond in the Rough" (Becket Contra).
I think the authors name is Charlie <something>.
Anybody happen to know the correct / full name???
Regards
Erik Lilholt
Hello Friends,
I am hosting/organizing a contra dance on Sunday evening, May 21st, to
celebrate Ralph Sweet's 88th birthday. This is the last dance in Ralph's
Shindig in the Barn series this season, and next season is not a
certainty. Ralph's son Walter is part of a trio of musicians that will be
providing the dance music.
We are planning this dance as a tribute, and a thank you to Ralph for all
he is to the dance community, and I am hoping for multiple callers to
participate. If you are available, and would like to call a dance please
send me a message. I can program in about 10 callers, and I will reserve
slots on a first come, first serve basis.
Please consider helping us to make this dance at Ralph's barn a celebration!
Rich Sbardella
Stafford, CT
A friend is looking for a dance called by Steve Zakon-Anderson and she
believes it's called "A Great Catch."
Her description, as she remembers it, is:
"Ladies left allemande 1 1/2 and balance in a short wave with partner in R
hand, Walk forward to new wave with your shadow in your R hand, Allemand R
1 1/4 with shadow to long lines, ladies facing out, men facing in, Slide to
the right in front of your shadow and catch your partner for a swing,
?Circle to the left all the way around"
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
--
*Looking forward,Linda S. Mrosko*
*102 Mitchell Drive*
*Temple, Texas 76501*
*(903) 292-3713 (Cell)*
*(903) 603-9955 (Skype)*
*contradancetx.com <http://www.contradancetx.com>*
*www.zazzle.com/fuzzycozy* <http://www.zazzle.com/fuzzycozy*> (Dance
buttons, t-shirts, & more)*
When Cecil Sharp published the figures for what he dubbed the
"running set" in Part V of _The Country Dance Book_ (1918), he
didn't publish the actual tunes he had heard played at dances
in Kentucky, but instead recommended other tunes (which he
published in _Country Dance Tunes, Set 9_) as "superior to the
Kentucky tunes in melodic interest." I'm wondering whether
notations of the *actual* tunes Sharp heard in Kentucky--or
even their titles--still exist.
The tunes in question do *not* appear in _English Folk Songs
from the Southern Appalachians_ (collected by Cecil Sharp,
edited by Maud Karpeles, originally published in 1932, but the
copy I'm looking at is a 2012 reprinting of the 1952 "second
impression"), though that work does include fifteen "Jig
Tunes" that Karpeles describes as being used to accompany solo
step dancing.
In the preface to _English Folk Songs from the Southern
Appalachians_, Karpeles writes [Vo1. 1, p. xiii,footnote 4]:
Cecil Sharp's original manuscript collection is in the
Clare College Library at Cambridge, and there are also
complete copies in the Harvard College Library, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, and in the New York Public Library.
If Sharp's transcriptions of Kentucky tunes for the "running set"
have not yet been published elsewhere, perhaps they still survive
in those collections.
Does anybody know?
I also have a related question.
Out of the fifteen tunes Sharp published in _Country Dance Tunes,
Set 9_ as suggested for the "running set", nine are in 6/8 time
and one is in 9/8. I also have a copy of Douglas and Helen
Kennedy's _Square Dances of America_, which includes 18 tunes.
[Note: There was also another, I believe later, edition with
fewer tunes.] The Kennedys recommend ten of those 18 tunes for
the "running set", and out of those ten tunes, nine are in 6/8
time.
My question is: Is this idea of 6/8 music for the "running set"
entirely a fancy conceived by Sharp and picked up by the Kennedys,
or does it have even a slight basis in Kentucky tradition?
I'm strongly inclined to guess the former, but one thing gives me
pause: Describing the music for the "running set", Sharp writes
[_The Country Dance Book_, Part V, p. 17]:
Throughout the dance the onlookers and the performers
also, when not actually dancing, should enforce the rhythm
of the music by "patting," i.e., alternately stamping and
clapping. ... In 6/8 time the hands are usually clapped
on the third and sixth quavers, but the "patter" will
often strike his thighs, right hand on right thigh on the
second and fifth quavers, and left hand on left thigh on
the third and sixth, stamping of course on the first and
fourth quavers. ...
Whatever anyone thinks of Sharp's taste in calling the Kentucky
dance tunes a "inferior", I don't know of claims that he was
technically unskilled at notating what he was hearing. The
detailed description above seems to suggest that he actually
heard such 6/8 rhythms in Kentucky. (By the way, when I try
to "pat" in the manner described in the last few lines quoted
above, I find that it's not so easy. Doing it accurately,
especially at a fast tempo, could take a good deal of practice.
Or perhaps it would be easier to learn by emulating someone
than by trying to work it out for myself from the printed
description.)
Phil Jamison has a collection of 95 recordings of southern
callers made in the period 1924-1933.
http://www.philjamison.com/78-rpm-recordings/
These include dances in both big circle and four-couple
square formations. I've listened to most of these and I don't
recall a single one being in 6/9 time. If there really was a
tradition of 6/8 dance music in the southeastern U.S., it's
a bit surprising that it wouldn't be represented at least once
in Phil's collection.
I'll note also that the "jig tunes" in _English Folk Songs
from the Southern Appalachians_ are not in 6/8. They're all
notated in duple meters--2/2 or 4/4--except for a few places
where a tune mostly notated in 2/2 has an odd beat notated
using an isolated measure in 3/2. The collection does
include a number of songs in 6/8.
The Wikipedia article on Maud Karpeles says:
... In 1950, and again in 1955, she returned to the
Appalachian Mountains (aged 65 and 70). This time she
travelled with a heavy reel-to-reel recording machine,
and recorded singers for the BBC. Some of the people
she met remembered meeting Sharp the first time around.
I don't know whether she recorded or notated any tunes for
dancing on those trips.
Thanks for whatever light anyone can shed on any of these
matters.
--Jim
I host a contra weekend and I've taught workshops. I've been to.a few dance
weekends as a dancer as well, and I've seen a wide variety in what callers
and organizers put together; this has informed what we do in our weekend.
We always try to have a theme. We usually don't come up with it; we'd much
rather have the caller present something s/he's prepared for than something
that occurred to the organizing committee, but we want the dancers to know
what to expect. If the workshop is one long medley grid square it's nice to
know you'll need the stamina for an hour's worth of continuous dancing
before you start.
Themes fall into two broad categories: Dancer training (safety,
gender-role-swapping exercises, how to cope with end effects, etc.) or parts
of the dance world to explore (chestnuts, diagonal moves, emerging dance
trends, try squares or ECD or African dance or polka, or just "here are some
of my favorite dances").
This doesn't always work. Sometimes the caller doesn't have anything ready;
in that case we relabel the session as just dancing.
The word "workshop" implies you're going to learn something, so we apply
that to our caller workshops too. I sat thru too many
sit-in-a-circle-what-do-you-want-to-talk-about sessions where I didn't come
out knowing any more than I went in, so when it was my turn to organize them
I insisted that the caller have a plan. Something to teach. Some way to
improve the experience of the people who come to our dances-even if it's
just coaching the callers thru a dance.
Ditto with musical workshops. Most are "let's learn a couple of tunes", and
feedback from our musicians was that this was a waste of time-they can learn
a fiddle tune from a YouTube video or a cd. Our music workshops always have
some element of teaching to them: improvisation, or how to structure a dance
set, ways to build energy, or something aspiring (mostly dance) musicians
can use. We provide time and space for jamming as well, but want the
workshops to have structure to them.
--Marty
Hello, friends!
Dance, Music, and Spice week at Camp Cavell, in Michigan, had an incredible inaugural week last summer, and we are planning an equally phenomenal week this coming August 13-20. The setting is gorgeous, the staff are outstanding, and the program is extraordinary. My goal is to fill the week, so I encourage you to register early, to secure a spot. Scholarships are available, if the cost is beyond your means. Read more on CDSS' website: http://www.cdss.org/…/dance-music-song-cam…/camp-weeks/spice.
I hope to see you at camp!Carol Ormand, Program DirectorMadison, WI
This is addressed to callers who have led contra workshops at dance
weekends, or people who have been involved in organizing said weekends.
When you have an afternoon contra workshop what is your thoughts on
having a theme for the workshop? That is you could advertise it as
being "Advanced Contras", "Classic Contras", "Contras with a
Difference", etc. It seems that this might let people know, to some
small degree, what to expect. On the other hand there may be little or
no point to it. People interested in contra dance will likely attend
the workshop. Of course the caller might have a theme or at least some
sort of central idea to help in selecting dances, but that may or may
not be advertised.
What are your thoughts on trying to come up with a theme/title for
contra dance workshops? What do you see as the pros and cons?
Thanks.
Jonathan
-----
Jonathan Sivier
Caller of Contra, Square, English and Early American Dances
jsivier AT illinois DOT edu
Dance Page: http://www.sivier.me/dance_leader.html
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Q: How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
A: It depends on what dance you call!
