----- Original Message ----- On Tuesday, February 01, 2005 12:40 PM, Lisa G wrote: Subject: Re: [Callers] RE: dance guidelines > On Jan 28, 2005, at 11:27 PM, The Witful Turnip wrote: > > > - If beckets, contra corners and double progressions are ok to call. > > > > Why ask about beckets? A becket is just an improper dance started in a > different place. > If it's a dance that flows into its progression, it makes no difference > to the dancers. > I think calling a becket is at the discretion of the caller: are the > dancers ready for one > more piece of info (hands 4 and circle L one place, etc). So I'm not > clear why > you would ask the organizer if it's OK to call them.
After calling a dance in a smaller community, I had the organizer tell me after the fact that they hadn't done beckets very often because their dancers had found them confusing. I was surprised to hear that and had put two of them in my programwithout even thinking about it. The organizer suggested to me that the reason they were confusing in the past was because the caller wasn't clear enough, and said the dancers didn't have any problems that night. I know I called Star Trek, I just can't remember off hand what the second one was. Mostly, the questions I ask today came out of comments that came to me during or after dances I've called in the past. Most organizers say that beckets are ok. If an organizer makes any other comment about beckets, I'm just more careful about which ones I choose and how I explain the progression. I typically call at least 2 becket dances a program, even for less experienced dancers. > Double progressions are an interesting topic. Larry Jennings dislikes > them > and way back when encouraged me to limit them to only one a night. > Obviously, if the sets are short, then it doesn't make sense to call > them, but there are some > pretty cool DoPros out there that i enjoy dancing. When Ic all them I > encourage the lines to > have an unequal number of couples so that dancers will have more > variety in neighbors > (as a dancer I can often engineer this by jumping lines). I typically call only one double progression dance a program but I do like to include them, just as a change. I've got some that are quite straightforward, so the more beginner crowds feel like they accomplished something. There are plenty of more interesting/challenging dbl progs. And as you say, I replace them if the sets are short. I sometimes forget to mention that having an unequal number of couples is better. Note to self: always mention that !
