This issue came up for me at a dance weekend just recently. My partner was dreadfully uncomfortable situation with another dancer. A timely gender swap solved the problem.
Love this forum! Bob Green Sent from my iPad > On Sep 8, 2015, at 12:30 PM, Luke Donforth via Callers > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Maia, > > Let me see if I'm correctly reading your goals: > You want to call dances with shadow swings > You want to minimize discomfort > > To do both of those, I think an announcement after folks have lined up is > worse than an announcement earlier. If someone is uncomfortable with the idea > of swinging a shadow, how comfortable would they be leaving a line after > you've made the announcement and highlighting for everyone in the room that > there's a problematic interaction? There's no way to surreptitiously drop > out; folks have to take new hands four and identify new shadows. I think > making the announcement after folks have lined up just puts public pressure > on your dancers. > > You can announce it ahead of time, either at the end of the previous dance; > or even during the walkthrough of the previous dance. I know some callers do > this for mixers: "Alright, thanks everyone for lining up and taking hands > four. Just so you know, the dance after this will be a mixer. You'll keep > your partner for this dance, but the one after don't expect to stay with your > sweetheart." etc. Andrea raises a good point that it's hard to know where the > shadow would be when you line up (or if someone lines up after you). > > Other options that come to mind: > Call these dances that are dear to you only in instances where it's unlikely > to be an issue. I.e. small dance communities where you know everyone and know > it'll be fine; or very large events (dance weekends, etc) where it's much > less likely for you to run into someone you have a bad interaction with. If > you had a festival session called "Shadow Dances"; then anybody showing up is > probably going to expect that they'll swing the occasional shadow. > As Ron suggested, you can modify the dance and say "and this move can be a > swing". Might defeat why you're trying to call the dance though. > Make it triplet-esque; in that rather than full long lines, you break folks > into small groups (10 dancers, etc) and run the dance for a short time. If > there's a shadow, partner, and neighbor swing, chances are you don't want to > run the dance super long anyway. You announce "find a partner and about 4 > other couples for a special dance" and folks can self select a little more. > Smaller groups also let more experienced dancers goof/chaos/play more with > repetitive dances without throwing off large portions of the hall (I consider > a dance with shadow & partner swing, with or without a neighbor swing; to > have a high possibility of repetitiveness). > Hope that helps get you thinking about other options too. Have fun, and > remember we're there for the dancers to have a good time. > Luke > >> On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 11:06 AM, Maia McCormick via Callers >> <[email protected]> wrote: >> Hey all, >> >> First, a disclaimer: Some people on this listserv thing shadow swings are >> problematic. Some don't see any issue with them. This is NOT the >> conversation I want to have in this thread; I ask that you respond to the >> question I'm asking and do not debate my premise--at least not in this >> particular thread. This should help keep this thread on track and hopefully >> reduce excess noise and go-nowhere discussions on this listserv. Thanks! >> >> Anyway, the actual question I wanted to ask (whew!)-- >> >> There do exist some really fabulous shadow-swing dances that I would love to >> be able to call, as long as I could do so without putting anyone in an >> uncomfortable position. Do folks have ideas for ways to mitigate the >> potential harms of shadow swing dances? I was considering, at the beginning >> of the dance, having dancers identify their shadow and mentioning, "this >> will be a shadow swing dance, so if you need to make any changes, do so now" >> (or something like that)--haven't gotten the wording down-pat, but the idea >> is giving dancers advance warning of a shadow swing so they can move >> (thereby changing their shadow) if they need to. Any thoughts on this >> method? Suggestions of others? >> >> Cheers. >> Maia >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Callers mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/callers-sharedweight.net >> > > > > -- > Luke Donforth > [email protected] > _______________________________________________ > Callers mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/callers-sharedweight.net
