Hey, good dance last night, folks! It was small (32 paid, about 40 in attendance) but mighty. Lots of good dancers enjoying an evening of contra and English. The band, too, was small but mighty - I don't usually like playing without another treble player to play harmonies with, but Kristin and Mike were a great backup, so it seemed to work out fine.
I had two personal favorite moments - one was the great reception given to Dale's dance "Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss". I'm not sure people even knew it was his dance, and they LOVED it! The other was the fabulous clapping in "Juice of Barley." Kay had the dancers practice just the clap with the music before the dance, on the theory that even if people were late getting back to the place they were to do the clap, they'd clap at the right time if they knew where it came in the music. Boy, did that ever work! As the dance wore on, the clapping got more and more perfectly in time. After a while, we in the band started dropping out on the clap so that the dancers had that moment all to themselves. It sounded GREAT! Afterwards, I invited all of the dancers to join the band.
But really, everyone did a great job of calling. While some of us had small fluffs, no dance broke down, and there were smiles all over the floor. The cueing of the band was terrific. Almost everyone gave us the "two" I had asked for at just the right time (in the B2). I, myself, had a personal milestone - calling a dance without looking at the card. Of course, my dance could be summarized as "side, back, side, back, turn, turn, figure eight", rivalling Roll in the Hey for succinctness and poetry: "circle, swing, circle, swing, lines chain hey".
M
E
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Hi all. Good job. Sorry we missed the "high points!"
Dan and I were just wondering tonight if a 1st *Friday* dance had ever been considered. This is the 2nd time we've missed the Sunday contra after being tired & sore from the great dancing on Sat. We'd enjoy the day off in between. Probably already discussed to death before I joined the Hatchlings, but thought I'd ask . . .
~Karen
Well, I wasn't one that gave you a "two" sign.
I was actually planning on running it through 3 more times. Normally, when doing Physical Snob, we only go 6 times, as we did Saturday. The dancers seem to like the dance, so I was going to give them more.
When you asked if that was the last round, I said yes because I didn't want to through you off, and I knew the dancers would be happy anyway, and sometimes more's not always better.
The dance was good. I'm all for doing more English next time. :-)
Hopefully my family will come down and join us one of these days.
Give us more information on the Nov. 1st dance...I want to talk about it.
I'm curious. How closely were you able to adhere to the time schedule you had written down in the previous post?
Deb - I don't know if this is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing, but almost to the minute.
The first time I made a schedule like this was last month, and I thought I hadn't showed it to anybody. Apparently, however, most of the callers saw it before I snatched it back from the floor near the callers' mic and put it on my music stand at the beginning of the dance. At that dance, without even being able to check the schedule again, all the callers were also within a couple of minutes of the schedule the whole night through. I was amazed.
People told me they liked having the schedule, so this time I brought several copies, and even put one at the front table where the dancers could see it. I think the reason we were able to stay so close to the schedule this time was that everyone knew when they were supposed to start and stop and took responsibility to do it.
Also, since we had been practicing our dances at the Calling Parties, we could be pretty sure that the teaching would be shortish, so that giving approximately 12-13 minutes per person was reasonable.
I doubt if I would do this if I were calling a dance by myself, but it seemed like a good thing to do when we were trying to make sure everyone got his or her chance to call.
I had just been at an event with new, mostly young callers, where only two-thirds of the scheduled dances were done at the end of three hours. The band stayed an extra half-hour, but the dance finished at midnight to recorded music. If someone had made even a crude schedule, they would have known long in advance that some of the too-long dances should have been shortened, as well as the two graciously luxurious breaks.
M
E
Kim -
Actually, I had assumed you wanted to do the dance 6 times, and my frantic gesturing was my inchoate way of asking if NOW was the time to go out. I thought I had counted right, but maybe I hadn't - or maybe you wanted to do it nine times!
I should have asked...
M
E
I think Karen (and the band) deserve special mention for bravery under adversity.
During Karen's dance the sound system went berserk (Wade had an explanation but it sounded mostly like magic.) The whole thing fell apart, but by the time Wade (and Tim?) got things back together, Karen was ready.
"We stopped at the Partner Swing," said she. "The band will give you for potatoes, and off we we go..." She (and the band) were able to get everybody moving and back into the flow of the dance. It was amazing.
Dale
Martha, we did do it 6 times.
I had been thinking we could do it 9, but it turned out well.
Aw gorsh, Dale, thanks! Somehow it was actually really easy. I knew right where we were -- I asked the dancers and they all knew we were there -- I reminded the band that we were just starting the B1, and we were all actually ready to go even *before* the sound was ready. May every breakdown be so easy to fix! (And may every fix be so positively received!) I appreciate the kudos -- I'm sure the band does, as well.
~Karen
P.S. I like the ratio of contra and English that we're currently doing. Anyone else?
Hey, all. Yes, it was a great dance!
Having the posted time schedule was a great help to me because it took the pressure off: the hardest thing for me to do when I'm calling is to remember exactly what time I started the dance, to then add the proper number of minutes to that time, then remember that number as the dance progresses so that I might actually remember it when the time comes to shut it down.... For a numerically challenged person like me, having the time written down is a lifesaver.
There's always the "watch the top couple and let them go to the bottom of the set and however far back up" but I'm not very good at that, either.
Ratio of English to contra: For now, we're probably about right, IMO, for this group of people. Would be nice to add one more English dance to the schedule, maybe, in a few months, if people keep on enjoying them as much as they currently seem to be doing.
Like Kay, I also find having the posted time schedule a real plus. I almost always forget to notice exactly what time I started calling or who was at the top when I did. I'm just busy getting the dance going. So having a clear stopping place is good. It seems to work well for us on many levels. Thanks Martha.
~Karen
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