Laur,
Even with great music and calling it's tough to create excitement
when the hall feels empty. I've tried to think of everything I can
do to make that kind of evening fun. My personal choice is to call a
large proportion of contras where the dancers swing their partner not
their neighbor. The logic is this: If you swing your neighbor in
every dance, especially early in the evening, what is there to look
forward to? With partner swing dances only, when you get a new
partner you haven't swung him/her 10 times before hand.
In general I usually run contras until everyone has swung their
neighbors and then end the dance. So for me contras with a partner
only swing is preferred when numbers are small.
And I include many dances that are in other formations and also take
some time to teach and dance. Here's one.
Dip and Dive for Five (my name)
Formation is a small circle of 4 couples numbered 1-5. There's sort
of a home place but this is not critical.
I learned this from Fred Park and if my memory is correct it comes
form the border area between West Virginia and Ky.
Couple 1 swings in the center of the set, others form a square around
couple 1.
Couple 1 faces up or down, heads dip and dive- takes 16 beats
Couple 1 faces a side couple, dip and dive....
8 dancers join hands and go forward and back. Go forward and back
again and bring couple 1 back where they belong.
Break
Allemande left grand right and left. With partner, turn back (5th
hand is with partner and is a left allemande). Swing partner at "home".
I usually call break, figure, break, figure etc.....
Tom
