Otto wrote:

<< and if a dance takes longer than one minute to show or teach, I don't use it. >>

Don Armstrong (one of my chief role models) wrote in his column in American Squares in the 1950s that a dance should take less time to teach than to dance. He gave examples: If a square dance figure lasts about 30 seconds (once through an AABB tune) and is done four times, the walkthrough should take no more than two minutes. If you’re teaching a break which will be done three times, the walkthrough should take 90 seconds or less. A contra figure, because it’s repeated ad infinitum, doesn’t have an obvious benchmark, but I try to keep the walkthrough down to a couple of minutes.

Don was talking about the sort of event that was then widely known as an “open dance,” as opposed to a workshop. In a daytime session at a dance camp I won’t necessarily follow Don’s guideline; there are many figures and breaks that require careful teaching and repetition but are very satisfying to do once learned. But at a one-nighter or an ordinary series dance (or an evening dance at a camp) I try to stick to that rule – except perhaps for one or two dances near the middle of the evening. At one-nighters Beth and I both enjoy using the harder version of Duck for the Oyster (where on “Duck through the hole in the old tin can” the dancers invert the circle without dropping hands; the move is also known as “Roll the barrel”). But we make sure we’ve gained the dancers’ confidence first, by giving them several dances that they can do with no trouble after a walkthrough of 30 or 60 seconds – or no walkthrough at all.

Tony Parkes

Billerica, Mass.