wow, alot of good stuff here. We in Buffalo have been struggling with much the same thing as everywhere else it seems. We have been having records number of dancers (for our area). Last week was 72 dancers! Unfortunately they are mostly middle aged women. Our difficulty is attracting high school and young adult dancers in a city with a large number of colleges. The usual plan is to offer a "get in free" card usable at the first-time dancer's second visit to our dance, $5 student admission and anyone under 12 or anyone who "listens" gets in free or for a donation. The "get in free" cards are working well. The premise is that on the first night they know they are coming to something they've not tried before and they are expecting to pay so we have not only them but their badly needed dollars. If they choose to return the free entry is our thank you. Our dance opens at 7:30 with contra basics or brush ups. Our fledgling callers lead this time and it helps us develop our teaching skills and helps make the new dancers feel welcome and somewhat skilled before that first dance.
We also have been having door prize drawings for those folks that bring a guest. These are nothing really special, just what I feel i can afford to donate to the cause. Sometimes it's a bumper sticker, sometimes a $1 movie, or a plant or basket of goodies, homemade jam whatever. People seem to like this and our dance attendance has been up from 30 -40 to the 50's to 70's so something is working. we are toying with "date night" to try to encourage bringing more men to the dance. One of our dancers is a college student with ties to the local Native American club on campus. We are working with her to host a dance on campus and feature some NA dances at the break. One other unique thing to Buffalo is our waltz. We love to waltz and don't get enough of it so we offer 4 at each dance, if the bands can accomodate. Sometimes an extra polka or schottische but not many of our dancers do those or hombo. Actually, I'm not really sure how much any of the above help but our #'s are up and that's the bottom line. Now if we can just get the youngsters...I'll dance off into the sunset a happy organizer! Mary Collins Queen City Contra Dancers (Buffalo, NY) On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 4:16 PM, Delia Clark <[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks for all the input on walk-throughs -- lots to think about! > > I know that this is slightly off-topic, but I wanted to share a different > angle on recruiting new dancers -- the slow way! We started a monthly dance > a few years ago. As our principal goal as an organizing group was to build > community, right from the first dance we made it VERY family-friendly: > - we offer a local-foods vegetarian dinner as part of the price of > admission (soup, bread, cheese, prepared by rotating local volunteers, often > with ingredients from different folks' gardens, root cellars, etc) > - we built the schedule around families: dinner served any time from > 530-7:30, family dance from 6-7:30, dessert potluck and break 7:30-8, contra > dance 8-10:30 > - during the break we sometimes feature local kids performing traditional > music, or a jam > - we charge $8 for the evening (dinner and/or dances, whenever you > arrive), but kids and teens (18 and under) are free > - we have a local business sponsor (compost and recycling company) who > sponsors the cost of the hall and some of the PR > - we have worked hard to be cool for area high school students, using > whatever connections we can > - we send out little poetic reminders each month, and have benefitted from > a very supportive local press > > On the plus side, this strategy has resulted in strong consistent > participation in our family dance, with many of the high school students > going on to play in their own bands and dance regularly in their new college > towns (including two who are doing a trad music tour of Ireland as I write!) > We have found that our dance is particularly appealing to Waldorf School > families and home-schoolers, but we have also enjoyed strong participation > from families of the small public schools in our rural region. We have > recently been asked to join our local sustainability initiative, as an > example of using the arts to build community sustainability. I feel really > great about the new dancers I believe we are churning out into the world and > I hope that many of you find it easy to recruit them to your dances! > > On the challenge side, we have had a harder time building momentum with the > contra dance part of our evening, though I have to say, we have always had > enough folks for a fun dance. With the mixture of new dancers, lingering > families, high school age folks, we haven't been able to provide the kind of > scene dance gypsies seem to prefer, but we have had some very kind and > generous experienced dancers frequent our dance and they seem to enjoy the > challenge of keeping it all moving. I have considered booting the kids out > during the break when we switch to contra dances, but many of them are > becoming good enough dancers that it just doesn't feel right, though I am > aware that this shifts our dynamic away from appealing to singles, etc. > Instead, our committee has made a big push to pull in people who don't > think of themselves as dancers, ex the sustainability crowd, or the church > choir crowd, and so far that's keeping the lines pretty full. > > Delia > > <>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<> > > Delia Clark > PO Box 45 > Taftsville, VT 05073 > 802-457-2075 > [email protected] > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Callers mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers >
