On 8/13/2013 8:43 PM, Greg McKenzie wrote:
If the hall is integrated the first-timers will have either a partner who will put them on the correct side, or they will be surrounded by couples modeling the correct behavior. If I need to give out this sort of information I consider it to be a sign that I have failed to integrate the hall sufficiently.
Greg, if there are two experienced dancers who just happen to want to dance together, do you go up to them and make them dance with someone else? From the stage, how can you tell that all of the new dancers are "correctly" paired off. What about the new folks who get scooped up by the not-so-experienced experienced dancer, over and over? How about when the experienced dancers are outnumbered by new dancers? At what point in the evening can folks just dance with whoever they want to dance with? I appreciate your concept but it seems to be leaving the real world out of the equation.
I would love to hear other ideas about how callers and organizers can encourage and foster a "wonderful dance community."
This is an excellent goal, and should always be part of our planning as callers and dance organizers. BUT, and it's a big but, I don't think we can assume that we live in the best (i.e. most perfectly integrated) of all possible worlds. By all means encourage the existing members to the dance community to take good care of our newer dancers, and to be good role models, but also offer the newcomers some basic skills ahead of time so that they have a bit of a clue about what to expect.
Kalia
