Another successful evening! Again, we were a small but mighty group: Kay, David, Judy P, Bob, Martha, Sue, and Chrystal. Everyone, EVERYONE, (okay, except Bob, who was attending an online class in the other room at the same time) called a dance! We did a grand mixture of Contra and English, we Contra folks struggling sometimes to learn "English as a Second Language", but agreeing that English dances are "just as fun".
We learned the difficulties of dancing twice through a dance with just four dancers, but there was much laughter and, um, inventive choreography while we tried.
When and How to Call the Moves
For me, the most interesting conversation was the one about When and How to call the moves. I keep saying that you need to figure out just what words are the important ones (the who what where words) and to plan exactly which beat of the music you're going to say them on, usually the strongest musical point before the move, which is beat 5 (out of 8) for a four-count call, or beat 5 or 7 for a two-count call.
JudyP, rather reasonably, asked for a less left-brained approach, and in the ensuing conversation, my take on what emerged is this: Deedling the music may be more effective than counting (it doesn't matter if you deedle on pitch, just so the rhythm is suggestive of the tune that will be played) and that it does really matter how you use your voice. Sue offered the observation that you should speak smoothly if you want the dancers to dance smoothly, speak emphatically if you want them to dance with punch, and if it matters to you that the dancers dance on time to the music, call the moves in time to the music.
If others recall the conversation differently, please add your views!
Caller Hubris
I'm hoping Eric will share his marvelous story of caller hubris and the crashing and burning it can cause. (BTW, I wasn't at the event he described, but others who were there do not remember any crashing or burning -- perhaps a small fender-bender.) The aftermath can be hard to bear, but I think we all experienced the blessings of his speedy recovery on Sunday, when he called a bunch of interesting (read unusual, therefore HARD) dances really well.
I shared the outlines of the story with Ted, who said "Oh yeah, I remember going through that." It would be great if of the experienced callers would tell us their similar cautionary tales about the need for continued preparation and practice even (and especially) at the point that we begin to feel pretty jaunty about our own calling.
How Long is Too Long?
We also talked about the length of dances - how long to let them run. Some people have noticed that callers sometimes let dances run a tad long. So, we asked ourselves, just how long should a single dance be?
I offered a friend's observation that her husband, a wonderful caller, always ran the dances about 17 times. He denies doing any counting of the times through at all, but she says they nearly always come out that long anyway.
Apparently, some callers look at the active couple in the longest line, and stop the dance when that couple had made it all the way down the line and back up. We also noted that if the lines are really short, or extra long, that might not work.
I will also say that, if you're calling to a New England style band that plays medleys, and the band has just changed to the third (and hottest) tune, if you try to stop them, they'll beg for more times through. (Some bands have been known to just keep playing. Cheeky bastards.)
Thanks
I don't know how the rest of you felt, but I especially enjoyed last night. We had the chance to work on difficulties, both personal and choreographic, and we had the chance to dance some interesting dances. This is exactly what I hoped would happen when we got together!
3 comments:
How long to call the dance is, perhaps, one of the most difficult things for callers (including me) to figure out. In general, I watch the clock. I try to let most dances run eight minutes or so. Most importantly, I try to WATCH THE DANCERS. If they are struggling or seem not to be having a great time, I'll cut it off sooner. If they are whooping and hollering, or look like they are "in the zone" I'll let it go a bit longer. Never more than ten minutes, tho -- you don't want to wear out the band!
This is a good topic for ongoing conversation.
Ted
I did some poking around the 'net on this topic, and was surprised at how little I could find. The advice I found the most compelling was from Tony Parkes' book Contradance Calling.
Tony says, "My feeling is that ten minutes is about right for experienced dancers. For beginners or people beyond retirement age, you may want to reduce your sets to five or six minutes...Traditionally, contras were danced "all the way down and all the way back"; that is, until the original head couple had worked their way to the foot of the line and then up to the head again. This was necessary in order to give everyone an equal amount of dancing, as until the 1950s, most contra routines left at least half the couples standing still much of the time."
I talked with Mac last night at the Tower Grove Park dance-before-the-movie, and he said essentially what Ted said - "The most important consideration is how much fun the dancers are having. If they look like they're in a groove, I'll let the dance run longer, but if they're struggling, I'll stop it sooner."
He also said that it depended on things like how hot it is, the perceived general fitness level of the crowd, how many people are in the line, the time of night, etc.
For us newbie callers, then, it sounds like we should bring clocks, barometers and wind chimes with us to the dance, perhaps tea leaves and chicken entrails too, for measuring the weather in the hall and divining the length of the dance. Or maybe T*FF*LL*HT (Time, say, 10 minutes or 19 times through, times Fun Factor,say .9, times Line Length, say .1 for each couple, times Hall Temperature, say 68 divided by actual temp. ), or as David K might do (but not say), 17 times through.
M
E
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