Read wrote: > When calles at our dances do this, I lobby hard to not have them invited > back. The message I get is "only I can be helpful to newcomers; you > experienced dancers, don't even try." If you've got experienced dancers who > are doing things that confuse newcomers, you (or someone) need to teach the > newcomers how to be helpful. Preventing them from doing so is not a way to > build a local dance. >
It is an unfortunate incarnation of what I call the "don't do it yet" syndrome, where the caller orders the dancers NOT to do something and listen first. There are situations where this call might be needed...but not often. If the caller asks dancers to ignore a call more than once a night I'd call it a syndrome. I try to let the regular dancers do almost all of the teaching, if possible. I do offer some safety tips, etc. But my calls are directed almost entirely at the regulars. I assume that they will show others who will then quickly learn the calls. So...I guess I don't think calls need to always be descriptive...I'm still thinking about that one. A call like "angry robin," which is not descriptive, has no information for first-timers. That makes it a little more difficult for first-timers to learn. I avoid this figure for several reasons: The call is not friendly to first-timers. And there is no physical contact and that makes it more difficult for the regulars who know it to show it to others. Generally I design my calls to get the most essential information to the dancers first. I would never use the call "allemand left your neighbor," for example. That is a totally backwards call. I prefer "neighbor, left hand turn" primarily because it first identifies the target dancer and then it puts out the "left hand" information , which is what the dancers need to know to start moving. "Neighbor, left hand turn" also has two fewer syllables. - Greg McKenzie
