I think standardization is a good thing, in all forms of engineering. Personally, I stick to calling dances that require only a small set of standardized figures. My goal is to keep this art form available to the most people possible. I know that I, personally, would not have kept dancing contras if a lot of new calls had been thrown at me every time I attended. My goal is to keep that venue open to the general non-dancing public.
So I would not use the call. I have a number of dances in my collection that I no longer use because they contain calls that could cause "mild confusion" for some dancers. Of course, almost all of the dances I call are open to the general public. - Greg McKenzie ************* On Sun, Dec 4, 2011 at 6:33 AM, Bob Peterson <[email protected]> wrote: > Recently someone posted a dance sequence and rather then hijack that > thread I'm starting a new one. > > > Right hand turn, Left hand turn > > Two hand turn, No hand turn (do-si-do) > > Balance and swing > > Promenade and slip the clutch (ladies turn right and meet the next gent) > > Outside of modern square dancing you can define slip the clutch any way > you like, of course, but within MSD, a slip the clutch requires both > dancers in the couple to already be facing in opposite directions. What > would be borrowed here from MSD is a "ladies rollback while the gents move > forward". > > What's good here is the definition for this rare contra call is included. > What's bad is this exactly not the definition in squares. I know slip the > clutch sounds cooler and is shorter to say. > > Its likely this was misobserved, misremembered or a coincidence of > invention. It could even be a very old definition that diverged in the two > dance styles. It's still going to (mildly) confuse the handful of people > who dance both contras and MSD-they'll either mess up or hesitate. I can > dance a contra to whatever words the caller wants to use as the caller > defines it, but if this were undefined and sprung on me, say in a medley, > I'd do something the contra caller did not intend. So again I'm glad the > definition is included in the choreography. > > (Here's and easy reference to the rollback and slip the clutch calls from > MSD: http://www.mit.edu/~tech-squares/lessons/lesson6.html. There are > more precise definitions at the callerlab site.) > > What do you think? > > \bob > _______________________________________________ > Callers mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers >
