Before I lose the piece of paper I wrote the names on, here is the list of people who would like to call at the Season Opening First Saturday Hatchling Dance:
Bill C
Bob G
Chrystal G
Dale W
David K
Joe F
Karen J
Kay T
Martha E
If there is anyone who wasn't at the Calling Party on Wednesday who would like to call, email me at meedwards@westendweb.com.
I seem to have collected a ton of easy dances, so I'd be happy to open and/or close the dance. I would also like to call an English dance, or a Sicilian Circle dance like Walpole Cottage. Oh, I forgot, I'll be playing, so I should just call one -- I'd rather do an English one.
Someone should think about going first and being the first welcomer and teacher-of-any-new-people. There is no workshop. Do we want to try the Each One Teach One method? That's where you (and perhaps a partner) walk up to a newcomer or two and ask if they'd like to be shown any of the moves. You walk through a circle, star, dosido (back to back), swing (two-hand first, then ballroom), set-and-turn-single (balance, balance, gypsy with yourself), pass through. Other people are doing the same thing with other newcomers. Or we could make the first (or second) dance a circle dance, and use it to teach newcomers on the spot without them knowing that's what we're doing.
Let me know what dance(s) you'd most like to call. If we all choose early enough, we can see what might be missing, or what might be too similar to other things, etc.
Actually, while we're at it, it's not too early to think of the whole season - between now and, let's say, January 3! That would be six dances. Even though there aren't enough spots for everyone to call two dances at each dance, if we all thought about what dances we might like to do if we called a whole evening, we could each prepare 12 dances, call between 6 and 12 of them over the course of the next six months, and have an entire evening ready if someone were to ask!
M
E
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4 comments:
Why is there no workshop? It's something we hatchlings need to learn to do, and what better opportunity could we have than at a hatchling dance where the dancers know that we're new at this?
I'll volunteer to run a workshop before the hatchling dance if we can schedule it. I won't be able to call the first dance, though, because neither of the dances I want to call are first-dance-of-the-evening dances.
Dale
Good question!
Here are my thoughts about it:
1. The dance is not "just" a contra dance - what would you teach in a workshop? Dosido? Back to back? Set and turn single? Circle left? The four stations of a square dance?
2. I'm not convinced we'll be getting a lot of beginners. New people usually come because their friends told them about the dance, or it was advertised in the paper. We're not advertising in the paper, and I don't think people will encourage their friends to come until they've come a few times and are comfortable that we know enough about what we're doing to suggest it.
3. Since this really is the sort of thing you can do without a workshop (new people successfully integrate into contra and English dances without workshops all the time), I think we'd do just as well by our newcomers to teach each dance with the dancers who are actually on the floor in mind. If there are a lot of newcomers (unlikely, though welcome) we should be prepared to teach clearly enough that the other dancers know how to help them.
4. IF there are newcomers who are there before the dance, I think we could all be mini-workshop leaders, whose main job is to make people relaxed enough to enjoy themselves by teaching a few super-basic moves and figures and imparting the idea that mistakes are expected and part of the fun.
5. One of the ways we can gain some experience leading beginner workshops is to volunteer to do them at Childgrove. Mac does such a good job of it, I'm reluctant to let him out of it, but I'll bet he would be thrilled if we wanted to relieve him of the duty!
Those are my thoughts - what do the rest of you think?
M
E
I consider myself the default workshop leader. Anyone else is welcome to teach it. I am just there if no one else steps up.
Mac
Sounds like a gauntlet thrown to me...
Anyone want to take it up?
M
E
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