Goodness! That's certainly a worthy aim, to make the dances accessible to all. But I think that people also enjoy moderate novelty. Not dances with 5 new moves in them, and not twelve dances in a night where experienced dancers have to keep thinking. But some new shiny toy every once in a while surely keeps your best dancers coming back - and doesn't bother newcomers at all, since every move is new to them.
The beauty of standard, glossary moves is that experienced dancers can better help newish dancers, but for the newcomers they're often just as hard as the "new moves". I suppose we *could *turn our dances into ONS dances. Wonder what that would do towards our effort to bring the delights of contra dancing to greater numbers of people over time. M E On Sun, Dec 4, 2011 at 9:56 AM, Greg McKenzie <[email protected]> wrote: > 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 > > > _______________________________________________ > Callers mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers > -- As you set out for Ithaka, pray that your journey be long, full of adventure, full of discovery... May there be many summer mornings when, with what pleasure, with what joy, you enter harbors you're seeing for the first time. ~Constantine Cavafy, "Ithaka" 1911
