Dear Jill,
I encourage you and the Board members to go to the archives from the
Puttin' On the Dance conference that was held in the Fall of 2011. The
link is:
http://www.puttinonthedance.org/post-conference/archive/
The organizers of this conference have generously shared their
findings with all of us. You will find lots of great advice about
organizing dances in general, and how to foster a dance community in
particular.
It is so disappointing that dancers may have left your local dance
because of not being able to find partners! And while there are some
things that the caller can do, much also depends on the dance
community and how inviting they are to the new dancers.
Just a few thoughts about each of these:
Caller: 1) At the end of a dance, warmly encourage dancers to invite
those sitting out to join the next dance; I believe the responsibility
for this is more with those who have already been dancing. Those who
are sitting out may be too shy, or not know the social "rules", and
may not jump in readily 2) Choose a dance that does not need just one
partner, for example, a three facing three dance. 3) Related to this:
Have a number of dances in your repertoire that have minimal need for
gender designation. 4) Do a scatter mixer dance, and encourage the
dancers to invite someone into the dance at any point in the fun.
Dancers/Board: The Board that organizes the dance should develop ways
to encourage the participation of newcomers. 1) For example: "dance
angels"....dancers who may or may not have a visible button indicating
that they are more than happy to dance with new folks. 2) Have a
special meeting to which the dancers are invited to brain storm ways
in which the dance can be more new dancer friendly. This will help
dancers develop a sense of ownership of the dance, and may give the
Board some ideas that would uniquely work for your dance group.
Good luck with helping your dance community grow!
warmly, Linda
On Jan 16, 2013, at 10:22 AM, jill allen wrote:
Have you as a caller or organizer had particular success in helping
people to find partners, especially when there is gender imbalance?
I welcome comments about the issue of making sure all are having
equal opportunity to dance. I recently received a message from our
contra dance board asking callers for suggestions on this issue. I
believe that the organizers are addressing this issue because we
have had dancers leave after not being able to find partners. I
will be sharing your comments with our board and they will share
these thoughts with callers as they are hired to call a dance.
Thank you!
Jill Allen
Lawrence, KS
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