As Aahz points out, contra medleys are highly dependent upon enunciation and the sound system. They are also highly dependent upon the crowd's expectations and experience.
I recently called for a group that included a high percentage of "experienced" dancers whose approach seemed to be, "every time I interact with an opposite-sex person, it's a swing, despite what the caller has taught." I was not calling a medley, just a relatively staightforward contra that was memorable enough for most of the dancers. I have to assume their version of a "dance trance" was a bit different than mine. I also assume that a medley in that atmosphere would have been a complete train wreck. --Jerome Jerome Grisanti 660-528-0858 http://www.jeromegrisanti.com "Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it." --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe On Sun, Apr 17, 2016 at 12:53 PM, Aahz Maruch via Callers < [email protected]> wrote: > [the message I'm responding to was sent privately, I got permission to > respond publicly] > > On Sun, Apr 17, 2016, Rod and Chris Krehbiel wrote: > > On Sunday, April 17, 2016 10:12 AM, Aahz Maruch via Callers < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> On Sun, Apr 17, 2016, Laur via Callers wrote: > >>> > >>> I'm debating if 6 or 8 times thru the dances during a medley make more > >>> sense. I've gone back and forth on this for years. Thoughts? > >> > >> That depends on your goal. I'm hearing-impaired, I dislike medleys in > >> the first place, they combine the worst of contra and square dancing. > >> For me, more times through is better, gives me more chance to dance > >> trance. > > > > Since I have a goal of combining the BEST of contra and square dance, > > I'm intrigued by your comment that medleys combine the worst of contra > > and square dance. Could you expand and explain? > > The short version is that contra dance callers on average enunciate less > clearly than square dance callers, contra calling in general assumes that > they're calling under the music rather than over the music the way square > dance callers do (or calling when no music is playing -- the > walkthrough), sound engineering in contra halls emphasizes the music, > contra dancers have much less training in responding to live calling, and > contra vocabulary/grammar has less structure than square dance. > > Therefore -- and particularly for hearing-impaired people -- contra > medleys represent a challenge that almost always combines the worst of > square dance (live calling) with the worst of contra (poor ability to > hear the calling). > > Obviously, it would be possible to combine the best of contra and square > dance, but WRT hearing impairments, it would pretty much need to be > approached from the square dance side (i.e. focusing on the voice and > then working to get the dancers to follow the musical phrasing the way > contra dancers do). > -- > Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 > http://rule6.info/ > <*> <*> <*> > Help a hearing-impaired person: http://rule6.info/hearing.html > _______________________________________________ > Callers mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/callers-sharedweight.net >
