[Callers] Lines of 4/Long lines, and overuse thereof

[Kalia Kliban]

I was calling for the Bay Area Queer Contra series last night, at their 
season-opener dance in Oakland, and they are both blessed and challenged 
by having a huge group of beginners at almost every dance.  They're 
enthusiastic and ready to have a good time, but need a lot of guidance 
and fairly simple material.  I was noticing last night (and I'm a newish 
caller with a small stock of dances still, but working on fixing that) 
that a large percentage of the easier dances all feature either long 
lines forward and back, or lines of 4 down the hall, or both.  This 
makes it a challenge to keep variety in the program.

When you're calling for an inexperienced group, do you still try to 
limit the number of LL F&B and 4-in-line dances, or do you not worry 
about it so much?  There are just enough experienced dancers in this 
particular community that I was trying to keep the program varied for 
them, while still trying to keep it really accessible to the new 
dancers.  Had it been a completely brand-new crowd I would have felt 
fine with a lot more repetition of figures from dance to dance, to 
increase the comfort and familiarity of the material.  But as it was, I 
was stuck in that middle place, trying to satisfy a wide range of 
experience levels.  The eternal challenge...

Kalia