I think that your advanced planning will really pay off. I like many of these dances and want to try them out in the future. I have a question about two of them. I think it's Roll 11 that has a B2 with 1/2 promenade, circle left 3/4, calif twirl. If anyone has danced this does it fits 16 beats? If so, is it rushed and would the tempo of the music make a difference (a bit too fast would cause the dances to get behind)? Rockin' Robin has a B2 that includes circle left 1 1/4, veer left , veer right. I really like the flow of this. I assume that the circle 1 1/4 takes 10 beats. Therefore the veer left and veer right would take 6 beats. I'm guessing it's danceable but not at a fast tempo. Has anyone danced Rockin Robin?
I think that I'd like to know much more about the abilities of the dancers before I could make any comments about the program. What percentage of the dancers will be beginners? When I plan a dance I like the first 2-3 dances of the evening to be bomb proof so that the beginners will build confidence and start to trust me. If there'll be a high percentage of beginners, might you be taking a chance with the circle mixer as a second dance? Much confusion can occur in the grand right and left-turn back. I look forward to finding out how your evening goes. Tom [email protected] wrote: > Send Callers mailing list submissions to > [email protected] > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > [email protected] > > You can reach the person managing the list at > [email protected] > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Callers digest..." > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: Seth--how was your first full dance? (Seth Seeger) > 2. Program for 12/4 (Linda A. Leslie) > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 16:33:37 -0500 > From: Seth Seeger <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [Callers] Seth--how was your first full dance? > To: Shared Weight <[email protected]> > Message-ID: <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed > > Thanks for asking! I've been meaning to get this out for a few days > now. > > My first full calling gig in East Sandwich, MA went VERY well! East > Sandwich is a wonderful dance community with fun people. Sadly, it is > one where attendance can greatly fluctuate. Fortunately, I brought > along 10 friends which brought the dance up to about 20 people. > > I think programming the dance was one of the hardest parts. Mostly > because my collection of dances is still pretty small, I didn't have a > nice library to pull dances from. (While I do have a good number of > book resources, it's hard to pull dances out of them - I prefer dances > that I've danced before.) Half way through the planning, I realized > that all but one dance had allemandes in them! Linda Leslie was > wonderful and spent a few hours on the phone with me helping me through > dance placement and ordering. > > I started out using the planning matrix from the back of Give & Take, > but found that it had too much information on it. I ended up using a > grid that I got from Lisa Greenleaf that only has 14 criteria, instead > of the 35 in G&T. I am planning on moving all my dances to white index > cards, so I can highlight moves (all in different colors). That will > allow me to plan out my evening visually, instead of on a paper. > (Rearranging cards on a table is easier than having to continually > re-write the planning matrix.) > > Here is what I ended up with: > > 1. Cascades - Orace Johnson > 2. Al's Safeway Produce - Robert Cromartie > 3. Simplicity Give & Take - Linda Leslie (was Simplicity Swing by > Becky Hill) > 4. Carousel - Tom Hinds > 5. Square Affair - Becky Hill > 6. Roll Eleven - Sue Rosen & Larry Jennings > *break* > 7. Ramsey Chase - Joseph Pimentel > 8. Mary Cay's Reel - David Kaynor > 9. Happy As A Cold Pig In Warm Mud - Mike Boerschig > 10. Rockin' Robin - Rick Mohr > 11. Marian's Delight - Carol Kopp > > The evening was fun - surprisingly I wasn't nervous! Working with Amy > and John Larkin was fantastic. Very flexible and easy to work with. I > didn't worry at all about what kind of music to put to each dance. > Just show Amy the card and she makes great picks. > > A few times, I found myself calling an incorrect call (during the > dance). It would happen without me even knowing! (Fortunately, the > dancers weren't listing to me by that point!) One dance did start to > fall apart - I don't know if I said something incorrect or if the dance > was just hard to keep track of. Luckily, one of my trusty dancers knew > where we were supposed to be and the dance continued on. (I had lost > my place too!) By the end of the evening, I was completely exhausted, > but I felt great. > > For three of the dances, I had written out the patter (because I had a > lot to say). However, I found reading off of this different format > difficult and disorienting. In the future, I will work harder to > memorize the patter I want say so I can just call of my card like I did > for the rest of dances. > > One last piece of difficulty I had was remembering where dancers had > started in the line. It must have just been one too many things for me > to keep track of. I tried remembering who was at the top of the line, > and I tried picking one person and always looking to see where they > started. Neither worked with great success. Everything worked out > just fine in the end, though. Amy was great about extending the dance > out one more time through when I had miscalculated having everyone in > for the last time through the dance. > > Now that all is said and done, I am pretty happy with my program. It > had a lot of dances in it that I really like to dance. I still felt > that it had a bit of repetition in the moves, but it can't always be > avoided. > > Seth > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 17:13:23 -0500 > From: "Linda A. Leslie" <[email protected]> > Subject: [Callers] Program for 12/4 > To: <[email protected]> > Message-ID: <bdd25ab3.891a%[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" > > So sorry that I will be out of town on December 4th! Looks as though all of > you will have a great time....my best wishes to all of you: Seth, Chris, and > Nathaniel. > > The program looks terrific! Two notes for Nathaniel, in "It's a Pirate's > Life..." At the A2, a pass through to a wave only takes 4 beats of the > music, then a wave balance (also 4 beats), and the Rory O'More spin (also 4 > beats); this means there are 4 beats still left. The gent's allemande will > then start during the A2, rather than the beginning of the B1. So that > partner swing will be a nice long one (unless you put a Balance in there). > > Also a question about American Gothic: Is the Mad Robin oriented toward your > neighbor (along), or toward your partner (across)? The pass through along at > the end of the dance makes me think that is with neighbor; otherwise, when > passing through, each dancer must turn to face partner in order to > accomplish the Mad Robin. I enjoy doing Mad Robins a lot! So your dance > intrigues me, so I want to understand it in the way you intended it. Thanks! > > Linda Leslie > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Callers mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers > > End of Callers Digest, Vol 4, Issue 1 > *************************************
