I've been wrestling with this concept myself, since over the last few
years I've been flying a LOT for calling, and even my local gigs require
a fair bit of driving. Where I live in Sonoma County, CA, the public
transit options for getting to gigs in the greater Bay Area are very
poor. There's a lot of dancing inside the greater Bay Area (and I'll
include Sacramento, 2 hours away, in that cluster) within easy-ish
driving distance but outside the Bay Area there's a fairly wide radius
without any substantial dance communities, so that it's roughly 6 or
more hours of driving north or south to the next island of dancing.
Carpooling definitely makes the trips to gigs more fun, but it's not
always possible.
Should we consider going to dances with out-of-town callers as a
slightly transgressive treat, like fresh raspberries in February?
Should organizers stop booking callers or bands from beyond a certain
radius? I agree that our communities should model responsible behavior.
I'm just not sure exactly what that would look like. I'm genuinely
curious, as a caller, organizer and dancer, what solutions or practices
our communities might be able to come up with that would make some kind
of a difference. Strongly encouraging carpooling certainly helps.
Maybe posting transit maps prominently at dances or on the event
websites. Other thoughts?
Are there any dance serieseses that have considered booking local talent
only to help reduce the impact of travel fuel-consumption? And giving
it yet more thought, at a moderate-sized contra dance, the caller and
band account for maybe 1 in 10 or 15 of the bodies there. Depending on
the travel habits of the crowd, the best booking habits in the world
might not make a dent. Just thinking out loud here.
Looking forward to hearing other people's thoughts on this.
Kalia Kliban in slightly-inaccessible Sebastopol, CA
_______________________________________________
List Name: Callers mailing list
List Address: Callers@lists.sharedweight.net
Archives: https://www.mail-archive.com/callers@lists.sharedweight.net/
