Glad to hear ECD went well.
Don and Jeanne, Greg Rohde, David Keller, Genevieve Brown and Michael Cox came to our dance last night to seed the dance with some experience. And about 15 ladies and about 12 gents between 14 and 25 (years old). Eileen, David and I shared the calling.
Lots of good things happened last night. It was worth the pain. You know, the pain of seeing a dance not work well despite your best intentions because you overestimated their ability and your own (mine in one case) when a simple explanation and demo would have helped them so much. And I do feel the dancers pain when things don't go well. And my respect for people like Mac and Deborah grows. But still there is that nagging - gosh, I can do that. Just let me try it again! I'll do it right this time. Now I know.
For April 25th, maybe the hatchlings would like to repeat their April 6th program. You learn so much from calling live on-stage to real dancers which include beginners. The next time is so much better.
Larry
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4 comments:
Sounds like you had another successful youth dance and it was a bit of a learning experience – all that is good.
I would not recommend the Hatchlings use the same program at the next youth dance that they planned for the Childgrove dance for a number of reasons:
First – it would deprive them of the learning experience of planning a program for a completely different band and dancer skill level. The current program was carefully planned for a specific event – trying to use it as a universal program would not be effective. Some of the dances may translate to the new program and some would not. Developing the program for the youth dance will be a good learning experience and create some interesting discussions.
Second – it sounds like you have discovered that it is easy to overestimate abilities. It is far better to error on the side of under-estimating. The dancers will have a very successful experience and will not even notice that the dances were easier than what they have been trying to do. A successful experience is critical if you want dancers to come back for future events. It is not fun to spend a lot of time struggling to learn a dance or having difficulty keeping the dance together. A simple, well designed dance is far more rewarding.
Last Sunday there were 3 contras that took over 4 minutes to teach. While that is not awful, it is longer than normal. I need to see what caused that and determine if there are adjustments I need to make in the future. Dancers are probably not aware of those longer teaching times – but it probably took just a little away from the success for the evening. Most dancers probably can’t tell you why some dance events seem better than others. There are lots of factors. As callers, we need to be aware of those we can control.
Mac
I can't help but agree with Mac that a successful dance experience is more fun than an unsuccessful one. So it follows that a simpler dance, one which has more chance of being successful, is probably a better choice, particularly for us newbie callers.
But I would like to suggest that an entire evening of dances aimed right at the lower middle of dancers' skill levels will probably not, in the long run, be the best strategy.
A dance which is just a skoshe (or tad or bit or smidge) more difficult than the dancers have gotten used to will help bring dancers' skill up - AND give them a sense of even greater accomplishment. And greater accomplishment, I contend, is even more fun than accomplishment.
On the other hand, a dance which is just one bit more difficult than the dancers can do will create chaos and wandering around, which for some reason makes dancers feel THEY'VE failed, rather than that we've failed them. And that is decidedly not fun.
So, while we newbie callers should not try to push the envelope too far (ahem, cough cough dancing sailors cough cough) we should work diligently towards the day when we can be so clear in our teaching that difficult dances become easy ones. Being honest about when that day has or has not come is part of our job.
So for now, for the Hatchlings? Yeah, easy does it.
Actually, what a dancer *thinks* she finds enjoyable or boring doesn't always match what she actually enjoys dancing.
By far the best feedback I have ever gotten at a MUC dance (Modern Urban Contra as opposed to family dance) came with programs where the bell curve of the program was almost flat. There were NO difficult dances at all.
I had been "forced" into the situation by having a large group of beginners show up at the break. I was afraid of disappointment at not doing "hard" dances, but the opposite.
In fact, the feedback I got completely ignored the difficulty of the dances. I didn't get any "nice job w/ the beginners; what a shame we weren't challenged." Instead, everyone commented only on how fun the dances were.
It was eye opening to me and I never forgot it.
You also really need to think about what it means to "bring a dancer's skill level up." What skill level? The ability to twirl, execute flourishes? Keep eye contact during a hey?
I might argue that one of the big skills our community needs to work on is the skill of Dancing to the music and being a good partner.
I love a complicated contra as much as the next person, but if the two skills I mentioned above aren't present, I'd just as soon sit it out.
On another note, the one thing I've carried with me from my very first calling lesson is to remember that "it's always the caller's fault." In other words, it's not that dancers can't get a dance, but that the caller has picked a dance that isn't right for the audience.
Well, you've got me where I live now.
I feel exactly the same way about waltzing. A wonderful, simple, nineteenth-century turning waltz, flowingly executed to the phrase of the music is my idea of heaven. Twirls, flourishes and "moves" merely detract.
So what can we do to bring THIS idea of greater accomplishment to our dancers?
M
E
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