On Tue, 20 Apr 2010 19:29:40 -0500, Martha Edwards wrote: > I've been challenged to call a couple of squares at a contra dance > in August. "No New England Squares," they said. "They're too easy, > because they're just contras in a different formation."
It seems your dancers are equating "New England Squares" with "phrased 32-bar Squares" and condemning them as too simple. That may be true if you look at the squares on the Tony Parkes / Yankee Ingenuity "Kitchen Junket" album, but like most generalisations, it isn't always true. Some of Ron Buchanan's Squares are very complicated, but I call them as phrased squares. Or try one of mine, for instance Buffalo Gap Square at http://www.colinhume.com/insts.htm#Buffalo - I'm quite sure they won't find that too simple. > So how do you time your calls when you don't fit a dance to 64 > counts? Do most of the calls come on the "5,6,7,8" of the phrase > like contra calls do (for the most part)? If so, what do you do > when part of the room isn't ready? Wait for the next swan to go by? > It all seems pretty mysterious to me. If you're calling unphrased, you're still with the music most of the time, and the "5, 6, 7, 8" approach is fine. But if some squares are behind the rest you can always add in fillers like "In to the middle and back" or "Do-si-do your partner" while they catch up. And of course a swing is great for catching up time. If the more experienced people get ahead of the call because I'm slowing down for the bottom set that's their problem - and I tell them so! A lot of contra callers (even some big name ones) are scared of squares because they aren't confident about fitting them to the music, but the great thing about a square is that you're in charge - you can add a filler, which you just can't do in a contra. So actually you have more control when people are having problems, not less. And as with most things, you get better by doing it. It's great that your dancers would like to try some squares - go for it! Colin Hume
