I have thought a lot about this lately as well, though maybe I have
the opposite problem from the one Tina first described, though
similarly coming from being at this stage of calling. I know that I
do my best practicing and pulling together of new dances and new sets
when I have the looming deadline of a dance -- I just find it hard to
be motivated to keep at it regularly without something to work
toward. I consider myself to be an advanced-beginner inching toward
intermediate level caller despite the fact that I've been at it over
five years because my gigs have been so irregular. In addition, I
originally trained with the intention of focusing on family dances
and ONS kinds of dances for communities, family gatherings and
conferences, so my growth trajectory in true contras has been slower
as well.
BUT, this has all changed over the past half year since we started a
regular monthly dance in my town. Our dance organizing committee is
all about the community-building and youth involvement aspects of it
so we keep our prices as low as possible (free to kids and teens) and
include a nice local foods dinner and an hour of family dance, and we
feature young local performers at the half hour break between the
family dance and the evening contra dance. We have chosen to keep
the same band and caller (me) to maintain consistency, to allow us
all (band, caller, dancers) to grow together, and to allow a focus on
food, decorations and other things than booking. We have some
wonderful local sponsors to cover the cost of the hall, advertising
and food and I donate my calling, so that we can pay the band
members, most of whom travel from several towns away. When I have a
conflict I find a substitute caller and that has been a nice change,
and I donate the cost of paying the sub so it doesn't ding the dance
committees' budget. We began in January and averaged about 50-60
dancers for the evening portion last year, with a strong turn-out for
the family part.
The challenge that I am feeling is that as our dance-free summer
period comes to a close and I look at Sept-May of monthly dances I am
both daunted / intimidated and extremely motivated to live up the
faith that the dance committee is placing in me. As I read all of
your postings, I sense a mastery in most of you that I am still
falling short of. I am hoping that this year will leap me up to the
next level, while still providing a good evening for all of our
wonderful local following but I am stressed about how to pull that
off to my own satisfaction.
So, I guess I'm suggesting that maybe one answer to the glass ceiling
problem is to start a local dance (labor of love, takes a lot of
comrades) or to find an existing dance with a regular caller who
might want to alternate months on the mic (as I have heard happens in
the mid-west). But then, shoot, you have quickly to be good
enough!! Kind of a chicken and egg conundrum!
Delia Clark
On Aug 19, 2008, at 12:56 PM, Chip Hedler wrote:
Wouldn't it be great to have an online directory of dance
organizers who want to recruit callers--and callers looking for
gigs? The dance organizers could give their specifications,
preferences (possibly including insights into the local style), how
payment would be handled, etc. The callers could say what they're
looking for and have to offer, how far they're willing to travel,
etc. as well. Oh, yeah, the system could include musicians
too...the whole thing could be modeled after the "personals"
classifieds or the NY Times employment section. Oops, maybe not
such a good idea--maybe the postings would soon be crowded with
offers of pseudo-pharmaceutical substances to add/subtract inches
to various body parts or windfall opportunities to share in large
amounts of offshore currency.
The tension for dance organizers between wanting to lean toward the
security of proven big names who will insure consistently large and
enthusiastic turnouts, and the uncertainties of trying relatively
unknown callers and musicians isn't going to go away. Fortunately,
there are still folks trying to keep smaller local dance series
alive, even occasionally starting new ones. Without these people,
who often have even fewer training resources to draw on than
beginning callers, the future of contra dance "in the wild" would
be bleak indeed...
Chip
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