Hatchling Dance - which dances shall we do?

Here's the list I wrote down tonight:
Wade - a contra and a square
Kay - Dancing at the Rest Stop
David - 1 or 2 contras
Bob - XYZ, or Roll in the Hey, or Jefferson and Liberty or Essex
Martha - some beginning of the evening dance, and something medium
Joe - Al's Heyday and a Cary Ravitz dance
Chrystal - Concertina Chair (?) and Blue Persuasion

As you figure out which dance(s) you'd like to call, post them here with their descriptions, so we can discuss where everything might fit in a good program.

M
E

Calling Parties on March 4 and 5

Tuesday's calling party took place on the night of the largest snowfall St Louis has seen since 1995, and yet eight hardy people showed up to dance English Country dances. What a bunch! Kay and Deb and Chrystal and Joe and Wade and Alice and Bob and I practiced our turn singles, our leading up and our casting down to a fare-thee-well. I did Turning by Threes again, and Key to the Cellar, and they're getting better...The music for those two dances is just heaven. One of the high points of the evening was doing both Fenterlarick and Chrystal's rewriting of Fenterlarick as a contra dance.

That, and digging cars out of the snow after we were done.

Tonight's dance was planned to be more of a mixed bag, sort of like this second picture. But it was mostly contra, and very interesting. Greg brought a couple of dances to try his idea of teaching engage/disengage in contra dance by having various people blindfolded. We danced Becky Hill's Box the Gnat contra with one woman in each minor set of four blindfolded, then two women, then two men. Then we did Gene Hubert's A Nice Combination. Interestingly, the first dance was difficult for the men to dance blindfolded, and easier for the women, while the second one was the reverse. We discussed our experiences but did not quite figure out why.

Doug called a lovely wedding-type dance which featured a poussette. Bob called his XYZ dance, which worked beautifully this time. Kay and Chrystal and Wade and Joe and David and I also called a dance or two, and lovely Reida came to dance.

We talked about the upcoming Hatchling dance April 6 and made a list of who the callers will be and what they would like to call. We'll work out in a different post which dances we'll be likely to do.

Two, TWO calling parties this week!

For your dancing and calling pleasure we are holding a special Calling Party on Tuesday this week as well as our regular Wednesday Calling Party. On Tuesday, we'll concentrate on English, and rumor has it that we are going to attempt John Tallis' Canon, in which second corners dance the exact same dance as first corners, but four counts later. I, for one, can hardly wait.

Wednesday, we'll move forward on deciding what we're going to do for the "Hatchling" dance on April 6. (Hatchlings - because we're an incubator for new callers.) We should also discuss a bit what we'd like to do for the beginner workshop beforehand as well. I've put together a document that summarizes some of the wisdom we gained from the Childgrove Discussions posting on Beginner workshops as well as some of the ideas from the books and web sites we read. Click here for the Beginner Workshops document. It's a Word doc.

Beginner's lesson

Thought I'd see if we could move this discussion to this forum. It seems more appropriate.

The suggested lesson dance:

A1 long lines forward & back (8)circle left (8)
A2 star left (8) star right (8)
B1 partner allemade right (8) neighbor allemande left (8)
B2 neighbor do si do (8)>Partner pass through up & down the set

might make some interesting discussion:

If this were a real dance - I can see several things that would keep me from calling it. Maybe the same criteria should apply to the lesson. Actually - if you are going to t teach a dance - I'd teach the forst one on the program.

Here are a couple things that stick out for me right away:
B1 - paartner allemand right across the set - this requires a lot of space - the same as trying to put the entire set in one long wavy line. It works in the Virginia reel - but the set usually have much more space than during a contra.
B1->B2 Allemand left to a do-si-do is awkward. Alle Right works much better - try it.
B2 - Do-Si-Do and pass thru - is really do-si-dp 1 1/2
B2->A1 The dance ends with you walking directly toward your new neighbor. This works well to go to a lot of figures - long lines is not one of them - I have never tried that - but it just sounds awkward.

Comments

Mac

Calling Party this Wednesday February 20

Martha's house.

7:00pm.

Bring a dance to call or your dancing feet.

Music is available, or bring your own. If you are calling an English Country Dance, let me know which one so I can locate the music before the Party.

We'll talk about who wants to call at Childgrove during March and April - and who wants to call what at our "Hatchling" Dance on April 6. There are also calling opportunities for folks who would like to learn to call for community and family-type dances (Elsah, Cape Girardeau, St Louis Youth Contra etc.).

Optionally, bring a snack or something to drink to share if you want to.

M
E

First stab at an evening's program

After many hours of work at indexing dance cards, I have finally attempted to create a list of dances that could be used as the program for an evening of contra dancing. The dances I've picked from came from many sources: I've transcribed all of the dances from the various syllabi on dance calling we've used (Mac's handout, Cary Ravitz, Seth Tepfer . . . were there others?), I got a bunch of dances from Ralph Page's "Northern Junket" zine, and I've cribbed some dances from Ted Steele's and Kathy Anderson's calling, too. And various other web sites (FYI Cary Ravitz's site has a great index of web links to the dances of other callers). In all, I have cards for over 60 dances that could potentially be used at a Childgrove dance (and probably 20 dances that maybe wouldn't go over so well). Yes, I have too much time on my hands, and I know that 60 dances is just the beginning of a collecting sickness that will likely plague me for years.

My goal with this program list was to make an evening of dances that was very accessible for the first half of the evening, with the second half being a bit more challenging, with energy building as the evening progresses. I've tried to blend in a variety of moves over the evening so that each dance is noticeably different . . . not so sure how well I accomplished that objective. In fact, I don't think that I have either a gypsy or a full hey in the entire program. I've deliberately avoided down the hall 4 in line because I don't think that move works too well at the Monday Club (its best used sparingly there, IMHO). Also, I've tried to include dances I've already called at real dances. I think this would be a fun evening of dances, but it ain't a flirty evening of dances, particularly. It might also be a tad too basic.

OK, here goes. Your comments, critiques, and feedback are welcomed, appreciated, and anticipated. 

 # Title Author Distinctive figure

1 Swing Fever Tony Parkes NghbSwng /GntsAlmdL/PrtSwng

2 Small Potatoes Jim Kitch LdsChn/DSD/PrtSwng

3 Duck Soup David Kirchner CrcR/ROMrBalances

4 Ben's Brilliance Tony Parkes NghbProm around Ring

5 Comfort Delux Rich Mohr CrcL switch to CrcR progression

6 Fractal Fling Cary Ravitz StarPromL /BtflyWhrl/ StarPromR

Break

7   Dancing With Amy Bill Olsen RghtDiag Ladies Chn / StarLeft

8  The Women's Wall Al Olsen Twist on contra corners 

. . . this is Face the Creek?

9  Don't Be Scared Bob Isaacs Balance Line, twirl to swing partner

    of Your Shadow

10 Swim,Dance Poop Robert Cromartie 

ShrtWvy Ln Bal pass thru return

11 Butter Gene Hubert Slide left, CrcL, Swng

12 Southern   Steve Zakon Nice series of allemandes

       Swing

Oppoturnity for New Callers at NEMOFOTMAD

I got in touch with Sarah McComber-House, who coordinates the contra dances for Northeast Missouri Friends Of Traditional Music and Dance. N.E.MO.F.O.T.M.A.D aka NEMOFOTMAD

She says that the group would be most happy to have new callers.

Just contact Sarah if you are interested.

Sarah McUmber-house
mcuhouse@rallstech.com
573-985-4141 (office phone with answering machine)

Here is the website - http://www.angelfire.com/mo/sassafrassgrove/BHP/NEMOFOTMADindex.html

SCHEDULE for SPRING 2008:
March 14th - caller: Eric Schreiber
April 11th - caller: Jim Thaxter - Jim has said that he is quite happy to help practice callers.
May 9th - caller: Deborah Hyland

More on my thoughts for planning our dance

Here is my thinking about our planning an evening of dances. I suggested that each one of us should come up with an entire program for an evening of dances. This by itself would be a good exercise for each of us, since it would get us all thinking about the nature of the dances we call. The discussion we had last night brought up some of the features we need to pay attention to: variety of figures, increase in complexity/difficulty/energy as the evening progresses, etc. If we can each construct a program for an entire evening (or even only half an evening), we can compare our lists and see if we have dances in common, see if the "flow" of the evening is the same for different lists. We haven't even discussed how we want to divvy up the calling: do we want to change callers after each dance, or do we each want to do 2 dances in a row? How will we decide who calls at what point of the evening? 

So what I would like to do (and I will do it regardless of what we decide to do as a group!) is make a program for an evening of dances, listing the dances (6 per half, which is ambitious but do-able) and the "defining element" of each dance. For example, with the two dances I called last night, I would say the defining element of "Yankee Reel" is active down the center and up the outside, and that for "Don't Be Scared of Your Shadow" the defining element is balance wave/slide to partner swing (or allamande shadow to a wavy line). 

However we do this, we should get on with our planning so that we've got something to work on fairly soon. The "Hatchling Dance" is a ways off still, but we've only got 5 regularly scheduled calling parties at our disposal before the event.

Wade

 

Calling Party Wednesday January 30

Good party last night. Several of us tried new dances, so we had a lot of figuring out to do. Chrystal and Kay and David and Wade and Joe and Bob and Mac and I were there.

I tried one English dance, "Turning by Threes". What I learned is that, in those beautiful slow waltz dances, you can't use two measures to call the next move. You have to use just one. That's three counts. You have to jettison most of the directions, or let the "extra" directions come after the move is started. Instead of saying, six counts early, "Two changes of Rights and Lefts", you say, three counts early, "Rights and Lefts" and add "two changes" once the move is started.

My sure-fire dance (hah!) was the contra, "Rant and Roar". Funny, it looked so logical and easy to do for such good dancers. What could go wrong? Apparently lots. My source for the dance left out one little instruction, which, if we had had it, would have made all the difference. For those of you who were there, here it is: When the hey ends, and the men are facing out, ladies in, the man's left shoulder is next to his (current) neighbor. The Rory O'More move is done with the new neighbor, as is the allemande which starts the dance over. Whew! (And that thing where the ladies go across the set to balance their partners? It's a pass by the left, just as you thought. Pass by the right worked, but the original has pass by the left.)

We talked a bit about planning an evening, and Wade suggested we all plan a whole evening and then compare notes. And here I was hoping to get out of just that...

Planning an Evening

Here are my sources:
Mac
Ted
Tony Parkes' book ContraDance Calling - A Basic Text
Seth Tepfer - Programming an Evening
Colin Hume on Planning a Programme
Carey Ravitz on Choosing Dances
Bruce Hamilton's pamphlet "Notes on Teaching Country Dance"
Larry Jennings' book - Zesty Contras

As near as I can make out, the common message is
1.) Come prepared to call at the level of the dancers
2.) Work for variety
3.) Start with easy dances. End with easy dances. Harder ones go in the middle somewhere.

There's more, a lot more, but these seem to be the basics. If anyone has a favorite source I've left out here, let me know!

I'll start my review of these sources with Tony Parkes' book. He says "Two keys to successful programming are variety and flexibility."

Of variety he says that dances can vary by formation (contras, squares, circles, scatter dances and couple dances), by basic setup (the dominant figure could be a down the hall, or a hey, or contra corners - don't do two dances in a row with the same distinctive figure, or by the music (fast, slow, reel, jig) or by degree of difficulty or the energy the dances take, or by social interaction (more interaction with your partner or your neighbor or the same sex person).

Of flexibility he says that if the group isn't what you expected, it's good to be able to reprogram on the fly. Here are the factors he lists that could cause you to have to do this: age (at the extremes, some dances will be too difficult), the dancers' experience level, whether or not the dancers have been drinking, gender balance, marital status or what we might call the "velcro couple" syndrome, hall size and shape, slippery floor, presence of posts, size of crowd (too small for some dances, too crowded for others), and the weather.

The book then has his graph of the excitement level of the evening plotted against the difficulty of the dances.


According to this chart, the hardest dances should be at the end of the first half, or in the first part of the second half. I remember Ted (or Mac, or both) saying that the "unusual" dance, the one that takes the most thinking, should go kind of in the middle of the second half, with dances requiring little or no thinking after that until the end of the dance.

I feel that our contra dances have had more or less predictable challenges, so the number of considerations that Tony Parkes mentions in his book is perhaps smaller - we wouldn't do any of the International Folk Dances that Tony says could add variety, the weather doesn't affect us as much as it could, and our dancers don't usually drink before dancing. Our floor is good, we have no posts.

BUT

Sometimes the crowd is smaller and the bottom spreads out so far people have to run to get to the next set. Sometimes the crowd is larger and there's not enough room to dance some moves. We do get velcro couples. We sometimes get a biggish influx of beginners. We have at least one less-experienced dancer who asks newcomers to dance and then thinks it's okay to miss the walkthrough so that he single-handedly creates a vortex of chaos that knocks out three groups at once. So we have our challenges. We need to know how to pick dances that meet the need for variety, but we also need to be sure we choose dances with recovery points in them, like long lines forward and back, and long partner swings...

If someone wants to read Tony Parkes' book, I can lend it to you. You can also see Deborah Hyland to take advantage of the Childgrove Lending Library, which has other books of interest. These books are listed on the Childgrove Caller Resources page.

M
E