Spontaneous Calling Opportunities

I knew there was a reason we are doing this. I used to think I wanted to learn to call dances so that if I was ever on a deserted island with eleven other people, we could contra dance. Now I realize that you don't need the deserted island for calling opportunities to just pop up. A Flash Dance does just as well.

And, of course, just as our Flash Dances are carefully planned spontaneous events, complete with backup plans in case of rain, it helps to bring your cards and a battery-operated speaker system, and a group of five boomboxes all playing the same thing at the same time, thanks to an iPod and an FM transmitter. Add dancers and you've got yourself a dance!

Here's where we were dancing last night. Minutes before I got there, it was thundering and lightening and raining like crazy. During the time we were there, the sun came back out.

Mostly we waltzed, but I got to call "Joy Ride" (shown here on YouTube) and "Boomerang", and Bob called "XYZ". As always, calling is super simple when the dancers are good.

Still, notice that it seems that a lot of people cut the Mad Robin and the half poussette down to about six or seven counts each, causing the hey to start early, yet they finished the hey at almost the right time. Does that mean that the "half a hey plus the men passing left shoulders one more time" (Gaye said it was a three-quarters hey for the men) cannot be done in eight counts? I believe it does. By my count, a three-quarters hey should take twelve counts. I begin to think the hey in this dance actually should be started as many as four beats early, meaning we should call it early too! (horreurs!)

Here's the dance as it's written:

Joyride - Erik Weberg Improper

A1: 1. Neighbor Gypsy
2. w/Neighbor Mad Robin

A2: 3. 1/2 Pousette clockwise (Gents backing up to begin)
4. 1/2 Hey (Gents st L sh); finish Gents passing Left

B1: 5 & 6. Partner Swing

B2: 7.Ladies chain;
8. Star Left to next Neighbor

No one will mind (or notice, probably) that the moves in Joy Ride don't always fit the phrase of the music since it flows in such a curvy smooth way. There are exactly NO points of punctuation, no balances, no long lines fwd and back, no Petronellas! Except for the brief time that the men wait while the ladies chain, no one ever stops moving. So although the timing is crucial, it can be unusual. Instead of the expected ||8-8-8-8||16-8-8|| timing, it can be something rather more like ||8-6-6-12||16-8-8|| or ||8-8-6-10||2-14-8-8|| or sometimes ||8-8-8-8||4-12-8-8||, causing the end of the hey to take place at the top of the B1 during partner swing time.

P.S. I found two clips of Joseph Pimentel, that fabulous caller, calling Joy Ride. In the first, at Huntsville weekend with music by Ed and Elsie, he takes the Poussette way wayyyy out so that it takes a lot more than 8 counts, which kind of has the effect of making the hey start just four counts before the top of the B1, so that most of the hey is in the first 8 counts of the B1, with the swing only 8 counts in the second half of the B1. It works...

The other one, taken at the Ann Arbor Dawn Dance, is closer to the ||8-8-6-10||2-14-8-8|| that I now think is probably The Answer for this dance. The music by the Great Bear Trio for this one is especially slow and dreamy, which may be the best kind of music to make this dance really put you into that fabulous trance state we have come to know and love.


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