First:
Even if the calls are in English, the teaching must be done in Spanish.
And, if you're doing one night stand dances, English in other countries
doesn't work. I've called simple dances in both France and Italy, after
asking people how to say long lines forward & back, right hand turn,
swing, etc. Would not have worked to speak English, no way, no how...
Now, if it were at a place where people came to learn the dance, take a
few classes, become familiar with the names put on the figures, then
saying, "This is an American dance, so let's learn the American words,"
that works great. Well, almost great. I was calling a dance in
Denmark, to an older crowd of practiced dancers (all young people speak
English). They had been dancing to their regular caller for years, knew
all the moves. So, when calling a square dance I was surprised when I
called, "Allemande Left your corner, back to your own with a Right &
Left Grand," and they didn't have a clue. After a struggle with trying
to teach and wondering why they didn't know that move, I somehow said,
"Grand Right & Left," and they immediately knew what to do. They only
knew one word order for the name of the figure...
As far as word choices go, when I first started calling dances and
playing fiddle, when teaching the dance I'd teach a do si do. Then I'd
say, "so the move you're going to do is a do si do, but it'll sound like
this, 'oshiho'," "and balance & swing will sound like this,
'halnacenswin'." Even with these garbled calls, dancers did fine. So,
when you have an audience that is there to learn dances -- came to learn
-- teaching the English calls is fine. But, again, if it's a group of
people, who came to a gathering for a different reason, and you just are
to call a few dances, you do need to know how to give descriptive calls
in the local lingo.
~erik hoffman
oakland, ca
On 7/21/2013 10:54 AM, Aahz Maruch wrote:
On Sun, Jul 21, 2013, Mark Stowe wrote:
I am dating a Mexican anthropology professor that I met at a
contradance at an Earth Skills festival in Gainesville FL and she is
now a complete convert. This past New Year's we got 20 of her family
and friends contradancing. They caught on quickly, really liked it
and would like me to start a regular contradance in Xalapa=Jalapa
where it actually has a better than average chance of working given
the large arts/ music community, and the numerous international
students and expats.
Congrats!
Any leads to possibly existing materials/ written explanations or
calls in Spanish would be appreciated. And given my travels to other
countries (especially French speaking) I wonder is there any
non-English material and/or calls? Thanks!
No advice directly related, but the square dance community has decreed
that all calls are given in English (much the same way that pretty much
all programming languages have their keywords in English). Kinda rude in
some ways, but it does mean that people can travel to other countries and
still square dance.
