We rocked!
Seven (count them) newbie callers called at last night's contra dance, and, folks, not only did we live to tell the tale, we had zero breakdowns, we remembered things like introducing the band (thanks, David) and letting the band know when we were going to stop. Sometimes we even changed the dance a bit at the end to allow for a final partner swing. Stuff like that. Our regular callers, Mac and Judy, called squares to break things up a bit, and, if I'm not mistaken, I think it was a first or second square for Judy.
Okay, many of us ran our dances a bit short (though they seemed long to us...) but that just left time for our caller friends from Cape Girardeau to call, a nice treat. Mac organized the team according to the dances we had chosen so that the first half of the evening had relatively easier dances, when we would have more newcomers.
The crowd was large and had plenty of newcomers, so it was a good test. The band played mercifully slowly, giving us and the dancers plenty of time to think. Most of us called pretty easy dances, too, so we had given ourselves lots of reasons to succeed, but what a rush we got when we realized we had, in fact, succeeded. Yay!!
4 comments:
Yay for us!!!!!
It was a blast--and Joe's right, we all were (or appeared to be) calm and collected and well prepared. I MUST have been pretty calm--the microphone didn't fritz. MANY thanks to David for having the nerve to get us all started!
This could get to be a habit, don't you think? Maybe the calling party group calls a dance once every few months. I'm in!
One every few months...I think I could handle that!
Speaking of feeling like the dances were going long...
Before the dance started, I took note of the people in the top set. At the point where I felt like the dance was going on forever, I looked down the set, and to my surprise, those people I had taken note of were out at the bottom! I watched until they were 2/3 of the way back up the set before ending the danced and that felt like it took even longer. But it turned out to be the right time. I think Kay was timing it and the dance lasted about 8 minutes.
Hey, now I'm REALLY sorry I missed the big event! Congrats to all, and I hope to join you again soon, either at a party or one of those "every few months" things that I totally agree with.
Great job!
Eric
p.s. Absolutely nothing wrong with running a dance short -- much better than my tendency to run them too long...
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