[Callers] Saving myself after a crash

Sun Sep 22 17:36:40 PDT 2019

Yeah, I agree with everything said here. If you DO decide to go the hash
calling route, definitely let the crowd know that you’re doing something
different and deviating on purpose: with a “listen up” or something like
that.

Often the dancers DO sort themselves out, and the dance can just go on. If
I screwed up a call, I like to make an extra big point of it the next time
through—either saying it louder/more deliberately, getting the hall to “say
it with me: long lines forward and back” or something—to acknowledge that
_I_ fucked up and it wasn’t the dancers’ fault.

On Sun, Sep 22, 2019 at 7:21 PM David Harding via Callers <
callers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

> I agree with Jim.  As a dancer, I've danced through a fair number of
> bouts of caller confusion.  My two cents:  What seems to me to work best
> is for the caller to know at least one point in each dance that we might
> call an anchor point.  "Oops, I slipped up there.  Find your partner and
> swing on the side."  Or something, preferably with their partners
> because if they are lost they probably don't know who their neighbors
> are at the moment.  From that point, tell them to wait for the music,
> then continue from there.  Waiting is easier than responding to hash
> calling, especially unexpected hash calling.
>
> Dave Harding
>
>
> On 9/21/2019 10:01 PM, jim saxe via Callers wrote:
> > Becky,
> >
> > I may be off-base about this, and I'd welcome differing opinions from
> other list members, especially if they're based on actual experience, but I
> expect you would find some dancers who seemed *amazingly* resistant to
> dancing a hash-called recovery routine of the sort that you describe.  It's
> just not the sort of thing contra dancers are trained to expect.
> >
> > Some of the dancers who can most easily remember how the dance was
> supposed to go (if you hadn't muffed a call and sent things of the rails)
> will want to continue doing what they "know" they're supposed to do and try
> to help their partners and neighbors to do the same.  Unless they think
> you're going into a contra medley, they may think the calls for your
> attempted recovery routine are just more mistakes.
> >
> > The least skilled dancers--the ones who are most dependent on the
> surrounding dancers to get them through the pattern of a dance--may just
> have their brains totally full of stuff like "Uh-oh! Something feels wrong!
> I'm confused! What's going on here? It's probably my fault! Oh, dear; oh,
> dear; oh dear!" and not have any attention left over for listening to your
> calls. And if they do try to listen, they might expect that you are
> attempting to tell them how to do the dance they've just been doing (as
> opposed to the improvised thing you're actually calling) and they may be
> surprised that what you say isn't putting them into a familiar place.  And
> if they do get to a place that seems familiar, they might next try to do
> the thing they have been habituated to do when they get to that familiar
> place, even if it's not what you call at that point, and even if doing that
> habitual thing won't help them recover because they're at the "familiar"
> place 8 or 12 bars later than they would have been there in the original
> dance.  Moreover, those less skilled dancers may also have "experienced"
> dancers nearby trying to "help" them do whatever those experienced dancers
> "know" should come next, which, as I said earlier may not be your recovery
> routine.
> >
> > If the dance is fairly straightforward, with no out-of-minor-set
> interactions (so that, for example, there are no interactions with
> "shadows" and you don't temporarily progress to new neighbors then revisit
> previous neighbors before progressing for good) a possible recovery method
> would be to admit that you goofed and then, as the end of the tune
> approaches say something like "OK.  Just look for your next neighbor
> somehow.  WAIT for the music. ... Ready ... set ... Balance and swing" (or
> some other appropriate thing if the dance begins a different way).
> >
> > Then you may still have to deal with couples that somehow get stranded
> between two foursomes.  The usual rule in this case is that the stranded
> couples should go to the bottom of their set.  If they don't know to do
> that on their own, you could tell them: "If you're left out, go to the
> bottom" or  "If you don't have another couple to dance with, go to the
> bottom" or "Left-over couples, just go the end of the line."  And they
> might do it.  Or they might react as if somebody had just turned off your
> microphone and erected an inch-thick plexiglas wall in front of the stage.
> >
> > There might also be some people who have found a new neighbor to start
> the next round of the dance but who are somehow in a different foursome
> from their partner.  If they can't sort that out on their own, I can't
> think of anything the caller can say over the mic that will help, short of
> bringing the dance to a stop and getting everyone to regroup.
> >
> > Here's a story that comes to mind, not about a recovery routine but
> about a different attempt to get dancers to do something on the fly that I
> hadn't explicitly taught during the walk-through:  I was calling to a small
> group of mixed-skilled (but on average not very skilled) dancers in small
> city a few hours away from the nearest "hot" contra dance scene and for
> some reason I had just picked a dance in which only the #1 couples go down
> the hall and return.  I guess I hadn't taught the role of the #2 dancers in
> maintaining the position of the set, and I saw that the sets were
> stretching and drifting further down the hall with each repeat.  So next
> time I sent the 1s down the hall, I said something like "2s move up". No
> effect. Hmm. Maybe the 2s weren't used to identifying themselves as such.
> So next time after sending couple 1 down the hall, I tried something like
> "The rest of you, take a step up." No effect. Maybe they weren't used to
> interpreting "up" in that context. So ... "Couple one go down the hall.
> [Loudly and clearly:] The rest of you take a step or two toward the stage."
> I might as well have been whispering into my sleeve.  I'm not sure even one
> person got the message. So I just let the dance run a few more times,
> drifting gradually down the hall until I decided to end it. As I said:
> Completely unexpected call == Mic off; plexiglas wall up.
> >
> > --Jim
> >
> >> On Sep 21, 2019, at 5:11 PM, Becky Liddle via Callers <
> callers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> I’m a very new caller. I do pretty well, but occasionally I’ve lost my
> place in a dance and the dancers (of course) crash.
> >> I won’t always be able to avoid a crash, but would like to avoid the
> complete crash and burn. That is, I’d like to be able to recover after I
> mess up, so the dancers can finish the dance. My tentative plan is below,
> but I’m making it up, and would love both feedback on my plan and/or other
> suggested methods of rescuing a dance that has gone off the rails:
> >>
> >> I’m pretty good at knowing where we are in the music, so if I can
> maintain my head I’m hoping I'd be able to do an extremely simple hash call
> to get back to the top of the song:
> >>
> >> I’m guessing what I’d do is say “find your partner and swing on the
> side” and then hash calls that amount to going nowhere (Circle or star all
> the way around, LL forward and back, neighbour do-si-do, partner allemande
> once around—others?) until 8 bars before the top of the dance (if it’s
> improper), then say “circle left 3 places” to get them back in the original
> hands-four position. Then start calling the dance at the top. Does that
> work? Is there some other approach you’d recommend instead?
> >>
> >> And if it is a Becket dance, I just do the same thing but without the
> circle left ¾ bit at the end?
> >>
> >> Are there other tips you have for recovering and/or for killing time
> waiting for the music to start over again?
> >>
> >> Any other recommendations to keep everyone in a good mood if/when I
> mess up? Good self-deprecating jokes/comments?
> >>
> >> Thanks!
> >> Becky
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