While Martha's post mentioned that the other Hatchling callers had early calling times as a result of early lottery drawings, I think my draw was before Bob and Martha. I chose to call at 2:00 AM because I wanted the option of calling something uneven and the lines would be shorter then. As it turned out, another complication came from picking that slot: late night band change! It was actually around 2:30 AM by the time I got to call, and the band was changing, so my concern was that if it appeared to be taking too long to start the dance we'd start losing dancers. So I started yammering to the dancers to get a partner and line up well before the band was ready. I did that for a couple minutes, people lined up, and I started teaching. I called "Don't Be Scared of Your Shadow" and the un-named medley opener I stole from Kathy Anderson. The thought had flitted into my mind during the second dance that I could try changing the dance to the second part of Kathy's medley (which I've never done before), but I'd really let it run too long to try that. Both dances went very well, it seemed.
Despite the late hour, I did not call Roger Diggle's "Crazy Eights", which is proper and uneven (but highly cool). Two callers later Michael Fuerst got up to call and said "We haven't done a proper dance all weekend, so now we're going to do one!" Made me wish that I HAD called "Crazy Eights", but Michael's dances were fun too.
Wade
4 comments:
Yours was an interesting "strategy" for dealing with Sugar Hill. I wouldn't have thought of it -- waiting until the hall cleared out a bit so you could call a more uneven dance. Great idea!
It did occur to me as I was dancing that dances with a lower piece count would have a better time of being heard in that extremely reverberant hall. Also, although I enjoy a dance with a good intellectual challenge, in that hall with those dancers, I enjoyed easier dances just as much, because the effort of careful timing paid off every time -- your partner or your neighbor also got there at precisely the right time.
So, although I would have thought Sugar Hill would be a great place for a more complicated dance because of the higher skill of the dancers, I now think it's a great place for less fussy dances, but ones where good timing makes all the difference.
M
E
Even at Sugar Hill there were many cases when the "other couple" got so caught up in their really cool swing that my partner and I had to stand around waiting for them -- getting farther and farther behind the music.
Hmmm. I wonder if that's something I could warn against during an intro workshop; and I wonder if it would help in the long term.
I would say that the one place where a caller might consider continuing to call is at the end of a long swing. If there's just one person who ignores the music (and the needs of the rest of the dancers) I suppose you could let it go, but if there are several couples, I think some help from the caller might be needed ("Put her on the right for a ladies' chain") A swing is pretty amorphous, so a strongly punctuated call for the next move after a swing (or other smooth move - circle, star, allemande etc), even after you've generally stopped calling, might help keep the momentum going for everyone.
Or maybe not. Is there anything the dancers can do? ("Hey buddy, the swing's over." "Get a room." "You're late!") Anything, that is, that is not incredibly rude?
M
E
An intro workshop is not the right place to address this - newer dancers do not have this problem - if anything they stop long swings early. Strong calls might work - but some people just ignore the music and calls and keep swinging. We have a couple of people in our community who do this - and in this case it is a guy thing. I really don't know of a way to address it if they are already ignoring all the cues.
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