When I was a very young and unseasoned caller, I fell in love with contras and tried to include them in my one-nighters. In order to get a majority of people to understand the progression, I had to make the walkthrough longer than the dance. It didn't help that I was using dances like Haymakers' Jig, which has a ladies chain and needs a decent swing to avoid falling flat. People were giving up and sitting down before the music stopped. After a year or two I gave up on using contras with groups of all first-timers.
I had better luck with a twice-monthly series I co-produced in NYC for several years. I typically did one contra per night, sometimes two. (I've always tried to give people material they wouldn't otherwise have been exposed to: contras in those days when I was in an all-squares area, squares more recently as contras have become the norm.)
At one-nighters these days I always do a Sicilian circle as the second dance of the evening, usually the first figure of Ed Durlacher's Sanita Hill Circle: circles, do-si-dos, stars, forward & back and pass through. (If there aren't enough people for a Sicilian, I change B.2 to a scatter promenade.) I tell the group (if I'm not doing the scatter version) that they may have heard the term "contra dances" and that this is an easy example. "In a square dance you do different things with the same people; in a contra dance you do the same thing with different people." In a Sicilian you get the repetition and the progression, which together provide most of the feel of a longways contra without requiring a lot of teaching about the different roles and the change of roles at the end of the line.
Very often, during the initial inquiry and negotiations, the organizer will ask for contra dances as my part of the program, or will refer to the whole event as a contra dance. I've learned to ask what they're thinking of when they say "contra." Usually they mean the sort of thing I normally do: easy all-moving dances in a variety of formations. They call it "contra dancing" because that term is now more common than "square dancing" in New England outside the MWSD scene. Sometimes they have almost no idea what's involved; when I describe my typical ONS program, they say that's just what they want. I rarely encounter a ONS organizer who knows what duple contras are and definitely wants one or more. When that happens, it's usually because a substantial percentage of the group will be regular contra dancers. I may call something like Chorus Jig "for those who know," or something like Jefferson's for everyone, making sure the first-timers are dispersed throughout the set. Or both if time allows.
My goal is always to provide a maximum amount of moving to music with a minimum of teaching.
Tony Parkes
Billerica, Mass.
www.hands4.com<http://www.hands4.com>
Hullo Dance folks,
I'm searching for which publication I've seen a lovely map depicting the
flow and adoption / adaptation of Country Dance as it Went Abroad (from
England to France, nestling in as Contredanse/Quadrilles), back "home",
and then to "North of the Border" (look! SCD), and possibly more.
I'm hoping someone knows the one I'm speaking of. If I can find it in
time I'll include it in a presentation I'm doing, and if not this time
probably in the next.
(I _did_ find one from American Country Dance that shows in family tree
form the Ancestry of American Square Dance, however it's not quite what
I'm after.)
Thanks in advance, and for your time in reading.
Cheers, John
--
J.D. Erskine
Victoria, BC
Island Dance - Folk & Country
dance info - site & mail list
Vancouver Island & BC islands
http://members.shaw.ca/island.dance/
JD Erskine <island.dance(a)shaw.ca>
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
