Hello,I have been bursting at the seams to reflect on all the learning and growing I've been doing in the dance calling department this winter but I have had a hard time finding a quiet moment. This is the perfect one, alone in a cozy B&B in Rockland Maine while it pours rain outside. A work trip, so I should probably be doing more emailing and proposal writing, but I am spent and I'm giving myself permission to just sit with my laptop on my flouncy bed surrounded by poofy pillows and think about dancing.
I have so far called one to several dances each at seven dance "events", if you use the term loosely, and as I look back at them, I can see a definite learning trajectory that might be interesting for other aspiring dance callers, and would at least probably resonate. As a person who tends to feel fairly competent and confident, I have been WAY outside my comfort zone, with what has felt like a nearly vertical learning curve. I feel blessed to be learning dance calling through a Vermont Folklife Center apprenticeship with David Millstone -- his years as an educator definitely shine through as he alternately supports and nudges me, while accepting and adapting to my personal learning style and life situation.
My starting situation: I live in a household focused on an exploration of traditional music, instruments with amateur people practicing on everything from accordion and mandolin to fiddle and piano, lots of music talk, CD's, drop-in jams, etc. I have always sung and enjoyed music but don't play an instrument and have basically been involved in all this only in a supportive and admiring way, not as a participant. I didn't know a tune from a song, didn't know all that AABB stuff and what that means for dancing, knew all the basic dance moves from years of dancing, years ago, but was pretty rusty on them. So, fertile ground, but nothing really planted yet. Except, that I do spend a lot of my work time behind a microphone motivating and facilitating community groups and teams to work together on community building and connection to place, so that part felt easy and completely natural.
Dance learning chart.doc
Description: MS-Word document
I just made a chart to try to sort out what I have learned at each dance so far, and its attached here in case any of you are interested. A little narrative to go with it: My first "dance" was a family Christmas party on my sister's big back porch, in the dark, in our snow clothes--imagine the sound of mittens clapping and you're there. She had asked me months before if I would do this, partly to support me and partly to have a nice event for the holiday party. She said she had dances in mind when she renovated the porch to be so big (beautiful view of Camel's Hump in the daylight). David and I started preparing dances for it in around October and I was so struck by his first questions: "How many people? 11... OK, so we can have five couples..." I'm thinking "couples?!? I'd never thought of my family in those terms before. "How old is the youngest? 5...OK, so we should focus on simple dances..." And so we went. I ended up doing Shasha, Chimes of Dunkirk, Black Joke, Low-Backed Car and a final waltz, all using a CD that my daughter burned for me.
I was completely terrified beforehand. I'm embarrassed to say it, but I even dissolved in the kitchen just before we went out, with luckily only my sister and daughter there to witness it. Just terrified. I have no idea why this was so huge for me. Partly that I'd been talking about it so much for months, and now I had to actually DO it, and partly, I think that I so wanted this to be a successful event for my brother, who I adore and who comes from a very different world from mine. The whole thing ended up being a gigantic success. My brother, his wife and his two teenage children had never done anything like this before and they liked it--we even taught them to waltz! I had written out every dance with completely rigid calls, noting the silent beats to count in my head in black and the calls in red. Dorky, but I needed that kind of crutch to get started as I just couldn't see how to ad lib and fit the calls to the music yet.
The amazing thing is: now I can! I have been practicing tons in my car as I drive around New England for work, trying Broken Sixpence to every different tune on every CD in my car, until I can finally feel naturally how they fit together without counting. And, TA DA, yesterday, I tried just picking up a dance I have never worked on at all, a circle mixer, and just calling it randomly to a reel medley. I realize that I need to block it out in my head better, etc, but I also realized that I could basically do it, or at least the parts I could picture. It feels like I have lept over a gigantic hurdle: I'm not terrified of it any more, and I can see what needs to happen, even if I can't exactly do it yet. I am beginning to be able to tell where in the music to say the call, how to fit in all the directions, how to communicate with the musicians, and a world of other concerns that are at least starting to come clear to me as a list of questions, if not yet answers.
I had one completely botched dance experience, with a bunch of musicians at their weekly jam. They were all over the place in terms of rhythm (one woman commented jokingly "I didn't know that tune was a round!"), and I didn't teach enough, assuming that these musicians knew things that they didn't, like what a do-si-do is. I left out a whole figure, and got confused about whether to call to the ones who were keeping up with the music or those who were struggling and way behind. Basically a huge mess, but they all said they enjoyed it anyway. The next week, I had a big success stepping in as a guest caller at a family dance David was doing, calling Haste to the Wedding for around 100 people, including some couples where both partners were in the 3-4 year old range. With David helping as floor manager, the dance totally worked!
So, I feel like I am up on the next learning plateau, one up from the bottom. I want to learn a bunch more dances and practice them with real people. And I am starting to see ways I want to branch out -- I want to try a square dance next and eventually to learn that cool patter. I want to lead an hour dance program by June for a conference I'm doing for my job, want to start a community dance in my town, Woodstock VT, and I'm thinking about going back to an original goal of eventually learning to play my guitar, just so I can have some better sense of the music, and I think I want to work on my spoon playing so I can maybe think about fitting that into my calling. But mostly, I just want to practice tons and get better.
Thanks for listening. Looking forward to hearing some of you call! Delia Clark Delia Clark PO Box 45 Taftsville, VT 05073 802-457-2075 [email protected]
