Waiter, There’s a Duck in my Soup

A most interesting thing happened the other night.

I called David Kirchner’s dance “Duck Soup”, which has, as one of its many charming features, the opening move “circle right”. I remember David calling it when he lived in St. Louis, and his admonition “to the right, to the right” rings in my ears any time I’m giving directions when I’m the navigator in a car (“Turn right at the next block. To the right, to the right.”)

It’s not for nothing that experienced contra dancers consider Circle Right the hardest move in contradancing. We circle left so often that to circle right really takes a mental effort. So I reminded everyone of the reputation of this move when I started the teaching – “The dance begins with the hardest move in contra dancing,” and I made a special effort to remind people every time through the dance, as well.

Yet after the dance was over, a friend of mine said “Nice calling – except that you confused us by calling ‘circle left’ a couple of times.” “Oh no!” I said. “@#$%!” I said. “But I tried so hard to make sure I called the circle right,” I whined. His view was corroborated by my husband, and later, at a gathering after the dance, by several other people. And it wasn’t just once or twice that I made the error, they said, it was several times, maybe three or four.

I checked to see if the evening had been recorded. It had been. “Okay,” I thought. “This is seriously weird that I don’t remember having done this, but it’s better to know the truth. Maybe I can figure out why I did this.” So I got a copy of the recording and prepared to be depressed.

I listened all the way through, nervous, worried, waiting for that awful moment where I screwed up. And I waited. The little blue bar was getting near the end, and I still hadn’t heard it. There was a moment when you could hear the crowd shouting “to the right, to the right” but I went back and double-checked what I had said in the moments before, which was “New Neighbors circle right.” I got all the way to the end and hadn’t heard a single “circle left”.

“Huh?”

I sent an instant message to my friend about what I had heard. “The recording lies,” he said.

When I invited people to this week’s Calling Party, I mentioned the oddity and got these comments back:

Several of us learned later that the recording bore out Martha's pristine calling, and we were openmouthed. We compared notes, and we all remembered the same experience, repeatedly, occurring in our different places in different lines -- a whole foursome going left, muttering (or exclaiming) "right" as we corrected, and people complaining about the caller getting it wrong. So it wasn't just us! Mass hallucination? We talked about it, and figured that just hearing "circle" was enough for us, en masse, to default mentally to "circle left" if the caller didn't specify otherwise. That blows my mind, personally, as I frankly haven't been dancing *that* long and am surprised I already have that visceral a reaction.

and

What we expect definitely influences what we perceive – it’s a well-known psychological fact. We can also create false memories that seem to us as real as anything we ever actually experienced. I guess that callers need to work earlier to create the proper expectation!?

and

Ever see the emails in which we are asked to read a paragraph in which letters are missing in words and our brains fills in the gaps? I think that’s simply what’s at work here… If we fill in the gaps (correctly or incorrectly), that’s what gets filed away in our memory.

Here’s what I actually said, as captured on the recording:

Intro:With the music, circle to the right."
1. circle to the right, to the right, 3 places
2. new neighbors, circle right, to the right
3. new neighbors circle right…right!
4. new neighbors, right, to the right, to the right, to the right
5. new neighbors, circle right, right, to the right
6. circle to the right
7. new neighbors, circle
8. …(nothing)
9. to the right, to the right, 3 places

At the Calling Party we tried to find an explanation – any explanation – that would make this apparent mass hallucination go away. It was suggested that it could have been another dance – but the only other dance with a circle right was called right after Duck Soup by the very friend who initially told me I had goofed. It was suggested that someone was calling in the line – but the misperception happened to people in all lines, even to someone who was sitting out. It was suggested that the sound was echoey enough in the hall so that people confused “right” with “left”. And so on. Nothing terribly convincing.

One person did suggest that, if the dancers were not listening when I said "next neighbor circle right", that they might have interpreted my iteration of "to the right, to the right" as a correction instead of an emphasis. That almost makes sense, actually, or comes closest.

What do you think could possibly have happened?

Looking for Mrs. Beveridge...

Does anyone have the instructions for the dance Mrs. Beveridge's Triumph? It was published in the CDSS News 196: May/June 2007 but on the website there are no archived newsletters--just some articles.

Program review for Childgrove dances

I realized that I have not set down any specific guidelines on what we expect from the Hatchling callers at regular Childgrove events (not at the Saturday Caller’s Choice dances). I don’t like a lot of rules – but this should allow the callers to know what is expected and provide some consistency:

Hatchling callers guest calling with one of our ‘regular’ callers:
Proposed dances must be presented to the scheduled caller in advance for their review, comments and approval.

Monthly dance where 2 or 3 Hatchlings are the scheduled callers:
Entire program must be submitted to one of the ‘regular’ callers (me, Ted or Deborah). for review, comments and approval. I have not talked to Ted or Deborah about this. You can ask them if you wish – but I will be available for all the events if you want me to do that.

Hatchling callers scheduled for a whole evening themselves:
Not required to have their programs reviewed, but it is not a bad idea. Ask any of the other callers or even other Hatchling callers - the more input the better. Callers are welcome to offer one or 2 dances to a guest caller – but are then responsible for reviewing the dances their guest will call.

Most of the Hatchlings have reached a level that they can call and teach effectively. As you know – programming is a whole different skill and it is good to learn from mistakes the rest of us have already made rather than repeat them.

Feel welcome to contact me if you have any questions.
Mac

What happens when you get too busy

You make no blog posts!

So much has been happening that it's been hard to find the time to keep our faithful readers up to speed...

We can work from the outside in:
1. The High Tea and Whiskey Dance Weekend
2. The new name for the Hatchling Dances
3. The 4th of July dance
4. Everything else - will have to wait

High Tea and Whiskey
Kay and Bob and Missy and John and I have wanted for some time to have a weekend with Joseph Pimentel calling, so we (with good support from Deb and Bea and Mark) got ambitious and decided to just go for it and just figure out how we could do it. We put together a business plan, we rented the hall, secured a band, and then went looking for some help. The Childgrove board again demonstrated its openness and willingness to support events which are well-thought-out and support its mission of promoting the folk arts (particularly community-style dancing) and agreed to provide full sponsorship. The Dance Discovery board and the leadership of the Webster Groves English Country Dancers were willing to provide a hefty financial cushion, should it be needed, and St Louis English Country Dancers agreed to help with advertising and promotion. Wow.

The weekend is partly contra, partly English, and we're at 72% capacity already — not that hard, since the hall won't hold more than about 60 people doing English. We'll open up another 30 places for folks who want to come to the Friday contra dance later. Here's the web site: High Tea and Whiskey.

The New Name
We've been a bit worried about the attendance at the Hatchling Dances, and, in Hatchling style, figured we had to learn what to do to make ourselves more attractive to dancers. I put out a quick survey and got back the message that we shouldn't change the format - the people who come really like the English/contra format and the music. Changing the day from Saturday to Friday turned out not to be an option, so what was left? A name change! The Hatchling name is adorable, as are our little winged egg-born creatures, but it seems to symbolize "caller practice sessions" rather than "callers who have practiced". So our dances are now First Saturday Callers' Choice Dances, or, as it's already gotten shortened to, Choice Dances.

Yeah, I know the real reason for the smaller attendance figures is that we're trying to get contra dancers to do a bit of English, and English dancers to do a bit of contra, and very few people like to do things outside their usual habits. The number of people who like to do both contra and English is smaller than either the number of contra dancers or the number of English dancers. But we persevere, and the number of "crossover" dancers is slowly but surely increasing.

The 4th of July dance
We were almost forced to cancel this one, but for reasons WAY too complicated to go into, we're not canceling, and we're glad of it. If just 16 people show up, we'll be fine, and we'll have moral boasting rights for months. So if you want to come to a small, just-us-chickens dance, come dance around our virtual kitchen this Saturday.

M
E

Square dance move

So what's the real name of the square dance move Mac called last night? It sounded to me like "Dos Pasos" but I can't find a move of that name?

Mac was feeling very brave (foolish? confident?) with the dances he called when there were so many first-timers there.

More on the Double Grand Square

I have to admit, I was really thrilled when we walked through the double grand square yesterday. I was lucky, of course. There were exactly 16 people at the Calling Party. All but one of them knew already how to do a Grand Square. They even thought it would be fun. Everyone learns fast when they're having fun.

Here's a picture that kind of begins to explain - the red couples are the heads, the purple couples are the sides, the green couples are the centers, and the blue couples (yes!) are the corners. The heads and sides face up and down, the centers and corners face across the set. The call is "heads go forward, sides divide." The centers follow the call for the sides, and the corners follow the call for the heads. Click on the picture to see it animated.

This didn't happen all at once, of course. It started when I played music for John Ramsay's high school class doing (?) Easter Morn (?) in his living room for a video. It has a grand square with an extra couple. Hmm...I thought. When I got a chance to dance the dance a few months later, when I got to be the center couple, I inadvertently pissed off my partner by walking the opposite corner, just to see if it worked. Later, thinking about it, I realized you could do the dance with six couples, and started working out how it would be done. I noticed that only three of the four corners of the small squares were occupied at any one time, and my dear husband Bob said, "Well, the last two couples go in the corners." "But, but..." I sputtered, "they won't be standing next to each other!" "Good observation," he said.

I started showing anyone who would listen about the double grand square. Kimmswick was great - all those smart people with nothing much better to do, thought it was pretty cool. ("Nah nah" to all of you who just think I'm nuts.) I got a little better at explaining it each time, and then I got challenged to animate it. I fired up Flash and had a good time, pushing little dots around the screen. Then I added noses and (slightly) better colors on another night.

And then, yesterday, miraculously, sixteen people walked through it twice, almost flawlessly.

I am so psyched.

M
E

Martha's Double Grand Square

For those of you who missed the calling party last night -- it was a great one. In addition to celebrating Kay's birthday, there were 16 of us there so we had the honor of being Martha's live salt and pepper shakers as she tried out the Double Grand Square (or as I like to think of it Martha's Great Grandsquare) with live dancers.

It works.

Kimmswick 2009

Wasn't that just a barrel of fun?

Many contributors to this blog called dances at the Kimmswick Festival this weekend. Many fun dances. Lots of terrific bands to dance and call to. Dozens and dozens of good dancers to dance with. We even had a few Mother Nature difficulties to get through so we will always be able to pinpoint the occasion: "Remember the Kimmswick where we had a tornado watch, and a fabulous thunderstorm and it took out the electricity to the dance hall so we had to dance in the dining hall?" "Remember the Kimmswick where we all froze in our beds because the temperature dropped to about 40 degrees and all we brought was a sheet?"

One of the great things about this weekend, too, was the number and quality of under-30 (okay, under 35) people we had, dancing and playing music and calling. The future of our sport is assured. The Cosmic Otters, with Jonathan and Edward and Meg (with baby on board), and the New Mules (Genevieve Harrison, Smith Koester and Andy Gribble) were two of the highlights of the weekend. The geezer bands weren't too shabby, either.

I am happy to report that I took another step towards becoming a real caller this weekend. Not that I called all that much - we had many callers (yay!) to fit in, and I had music to play - but I collected a dance! I'm not sure I like this method of getting dances, since you kind of have to stop dancing while you go write down stuff - either the name of the dance or the directions. If I don't write down the name, I won't remember what to ask for. But I did learn something that should have been obvious, but wasn't to me. It's actually polite to ask for the dance - you're kind of voting for that dance, telling the caller that you liked it enough to want to call it yourself! (Okay, I hear you all saying "duh".) Perhaps I'll find an easier way to remember the dance or its name. Perhaps I'll find an antique Dance Card and copy it, and wear it dangling on my wrist with a small pencil attached, like the old days.

Bob had the job of scheduling the callers. He got expert advice from the previous holder of this post, Deborah Hyland, and did a creditable job - there were no fist fights among the callers, and we kept on dancing all weekend.

The English workshop went well, even though there were fewer people in the hall this year, about 35 (that's partly because there are always fewer people at our 2-day weekends than at our 3-day weekends). At about the midway point, I counted the number of St Louis people at five. Bob disputed this point, but I'm not sure he actually counted, and he may have included people from other dance groups that he knows so well that he thinks they must be homies. My old buddy Pam Carson Stoll played in the band with me, as did my old buddy Jill Allen, who has also recently started an English Country Dance in Lawrence. We were joined by Pam's husband Fred Stoll on mandolin and Jill's husband Greg Allen on fiddle and by Dale Wilson on bass. The music was lively and pretty, and people seemed to be having fun. The callers were Bob, Kay and Billy, and they did a fun set of dances.

M
E

One of the great callers

Greg Rohde posted a link on FaceBook the other day, highlighting a fantastic performance by the Great Bear Trio and caller Joseph Pimentel at Winter Warmup last December. I was disappointed that the video showed only the dancers and the musicians, but at least the calling was audible.

And masterful calling it was, too. Joseph Pimentel is certainly one of the best callers I've ever had the pleasure of dancing to. Listen to the audio on that video, and pay attention to how he calls. If I practiced for twenty years, I'd be lucky to have half that skill and talent.

Two things really stand out for me. First is the way he actually sings his calls, matching the tone and mood of the music perfectly, blending his performance with that of the musicians. Second, I love the way he uses things like "hold that ring" and "take a deep breath now" to keep the dancers right on time. Amazing.

Sure wish I had been at that dance! I did have the opportunity to dance to Joseph's calling, both contra and English, at Nashville's Playford Ball weekend in March. It was magic.

Raising that Bar!

A couple months ago I suggested the Hatchling callers challenge themselves to improve their weaknesses. A few have done that

Billy called a square (quite successfully)
David greatly increased his presence on stage
Martha called without a card
Karen called a dance without practicing at a party

I am sure there are others

I hope to see more of this type of improvement. Do not be satisfied calling the same old contra type dances you have been doing for almost 2 years now. You are all beyond the point that simply calling a larger quantity of dances can be considered real progress.

I discussed with the Childgrove board and a couple hatchling callers what criteria could be used to determine when a caller is ready for a full night.. I suggested that we should expect a caller to be able to call a square or two (not a NE square) before they get a full night to call. Everyone thought that was a bad idea – except those who have already called squares. They all thought it was a very important step and should be use as a criteria. That tells me you need to try this to realize how much it will improve your contra calling.

One ‘reason’ I have heard is that contras are easy to find – but squares are more difficult. I don’t buy that. Saturday night Deborah called 2 very nice squares. They were interesting and had a lot of activity – but were not hard to teach or call (especially if you were to practice both at a calling party). The breaks she called were also very nice – although, if you are afraid of learning an figure and a break – couldn’t any of you call ”Allemande Left – Grand Right & Left?

Both of her squares and one break (the Grand Sashay) could be called to the musical phrasing – for those of you who like to do that. Did any of you ask her for copies of those?

And for those who want a bigger challenge – for all dance types – rather than just focusing on calling to the music’s phrasing – how about adding the rhythm and even the melody. Patter calls on squares helps you do this – but you can throw in patter on contras too. It will feel stupid at first – but will quickly become natural and be part of your style.

As usual – I think any of the local callers will be happy to help you with any of these or other improvements you want to work on.
Mac