Yes! Calling Party this week July 2

See you on Wednesday!

M
E

Flash Dance: The hatchlings spread their wings

Since Martha hasn't blogged about it yet, I'd like to report:

There wasn't an "official" caller at the flash dance last night. And since (wo)man does not live by waltz alone, the hatchlings stepped up (literally.) Each of us called a dance or two (I called the only one I know.) Martha pulled off The Levi Jackson Rag in spite of the claim by someone who shall remain unnamed that "that dance never works." Even with a fair number of first time dancers we were able to "leave one, pass one, get one" with style.

It wasn't a perfect venue -- doing a hey between those posts was a bit, er, intimate, but it came mighty close. Even the St. Louis weather cooperated.

Dale

No Calling Party June 25 - sort of

We didn't have a regular Calling Party on June 25 - Dale and Billy and I got together just to go over the basics. Since they're both musicians, figuring out where "1" and "5" are was easy-peasy, so we moved on to figuring out just where we might say what in order to get the dancers moving in time with the music. We used Gene Hubert's "The Nice Combination" for the project, writing down the moves in a special dance grid I got from some folks in Columbia MO, then writing down the calls in the preceding four counts, then using our notes to call the dance a bunch of times. At the end we compared what we came up with, with what I had used to call the dance at Childgrove. I liked the new things we came up with better, and have changed my card...

M
E

Hatchlings' dance

I really enjoyed the dance Sunday night. The dances went smoothly and the new dancers did well, too, so your instructions worked! (Sorry, Bob, I missed your dance.) Here's to the Hatchlings!

Calling Parties in June

We've had some terrific parties here these last few weeks. Enough of our wonderful dancer friends have been showing up each week to give us more than enough folks to fill the room (Note to self: make room bigger!), and we've had some fine wining, dining, dancing and conversation.

The universe continues to conspire not to let me do any English dancing, but I did have the pleasure of playing for Chrystal and Kay's English dances (and remind me, why did I buy all 14 Bare Necessities CDs? :-)). We did The Bishop to both its original (?) music (a lively jig called The Bishop) and to Miss Dolland's Delight (a more dignified and stately, if syncopated, march-like tune, which is suggested in Barnes for The Bishop). Interestingly, while I preferred the jig, the dancers seemed to prefer the other tune.

Last night Dale made his second debut, with cheers greeting his efforts. He'll be calling at the Childgrove dance with the rest of us on Sunday. Wahoo!

Here's the list we made up last night for this Sunday:

1. Broken Sixpence - Wade
2. Simplicity Star - Dale
3. Box the Gnat - David
4. Dosido and Face the Sides - Wade
5. Evil Duane - Joe
6. Boomerang - Martha
Waltz

Break

1. Chain the Swain - David
2. Eric's Second Date - Joe
3. XYZ or Symmetrical Force - Bob
4. Catch a Falling Star - Martha
5. Roll in the Hey - Bob
Waltz

M
E

Stories from Paula

Paula McFarling, one of our good caller friends from Columbia, MO, told me a couple of tales from the time she spent learning to call, and I thought they were well worth passing along to the rest of us.

Here's the first:

"I have been reading the hatchling blog periodically and really enjoy reading about all of you growing as callers. It was so scary for me at first! For several years our local dancers would rib me about the time I called long lines forward and back over and over until the music and dance matched again. But I didn't quit!"

Here's the second, about the Columbia Callers' Jams they held for a while:

"We started meeting in an apartment building’s meeting room and later met in our basement. There were 3 experienced callers who tried out unusual dances and moves. We invited any person who wanted to try calling or needed help or encouragement to call a dance or two. For music, we started with tapes but moved to having at least a fiddle player and usually several musicians. For awhile, our “slow jam” group of musicians was learning contra dance music and it was a perfect pairing. They were thrilled to try out tunes on dancers and needed practice in tempo and longevity.

The first year the Callers’ Jams were spontaneous and occurred every few months. Year 2 and 3 we had a schedule so people could plan on it and we met once a month. We had a flyer at the dances for each semester’s schedule. The first year we had a lot of dancers. Later, we had a core group of dancers who came, about 8-10 dancers. It’s great for new dancers because they learn more about how the music fits with the calls and the moves and helps them become better dancers. But an affair and a divorce and group fatigue all contributed to its demise. It was really a lot of fun!!

I had only been calling a few years so it was a huge help to me to figure out how to explain a move and then how to call it so the dancers would understand what I wanted. We had great dialogue between dancers and callers and musicians."

Sounds a bit like our Calling Parties, except for the part about the affair and the divorce. Don't think I didn't want to ask more about that! But I think I'll let it just hang in the air as a mysterious hint of intrigue.

M
E

Diabolical Dilemma

The dance last night (June 7, 2008) was a wonderful success. For a first dance of its kind, mixing (quel horreurs!) contra and English, with limited advance warning that it was even happening, an attendance of 33 people was Great News.

I watched the floor particularly during the English dances we did, to see how many dancers could comfortably fit on the Monday Club floor. It looked to me as if about 5 sets of four were just about right, and that 6 was still okay, but a tad crowded. We know that we could not fit 3 lines and still do the sweeping moves of English, so that means that the maximum number of people who could comfortably dance English there at one time is 48.

As it happens, the number of people needed to break even financially is 47.

And so the dilemma: fewer people, and the business plan doesn't work. More people, and the dance gets crowded.

We could do mostly contras, which pack together more comfortably, and suggest that each person sit out just one of the English dances. If there were 64 people, and four English dances, that would mean that, on average, 16 people would be sitting out each English dance, leaving just 48 to dance.

Well, let's just hope we can have this problem one day...

M
E

Dance!

Here's a link to the flyer for our dance this Saturday, June 7, 7:30 pm at the Monday Club: Hatchling Dance

It looks as if we have 3-4 English dances, 5-6 Contras, one Hybrid (Jefferson's Remorse) and one Dance in an Unusual Formation, the Levi Jackson Rag. I just found out tonight that the Levi Jackson Rag was commissioned by our very own John Ramsay. John's such a star...

We had a good time on Wednesday trying out all the dances - we changed out a couple we thought might have the potential for dancer confusion, so I think we've got a good program. I've made a first pass at putting them in order, and will send it around for comment tomorrow.

M
E