In my experience wedding dancers can learn four, maybe five dances. You do one seriously easy circle mixer dance IMMEDIATELY after the toasts while everyone is standing right there.
Then you do a flight of three dances that all use the same basic moves but are in different configurations: one longways, one random mixer, another circle but this time it's Sicilian. Somewhere in there you break for the cake. NEVER EVER let them serve the cake before the dancing starts, once people eat cake they are DONE with trying things just because the couple wants them to. At the very end you do one more "hard" dance for the hardcores. I'd pick the five best of all of these and then simply Make Stuff Up. Adapt Galopede. Adapt Lucky Seven. Just torque all the best wedding dances out of shape a little until they fit what you have. Take your favorite moves and quilt them together. And charge them extra for the research! A On 5/19/22, Erik Hoffman via Contra Callers <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote: > > > From: Alexandra Deis-Lauby via Contra Callers > <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net> > Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2022 10:30 PM > To: contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net > Subject: [Callers] Bridgerton wedding dance/experience with using non-contra > or non-ECD music to modified ECD/ceilidh dances > > Hi all, > > I’ve been asked to call a Bridgerton-themed wedding dance. Part of what > makes the Bridgerton theme is the music… So I’m wondering if anyone has > experience (of either the successful or unsuccessful variety) of calling > dances to music that isn’t our normal dance tempo (these sound a little > faster than normal contra tempo) and aren’t in our standard AABB pattern. > Some of the music examples I'm trying to work with are below (I’ll be using > recorded music) > > The event is normal wedding fare- not experienced dancers. Which will either > mean everything falls apart or they won’t mind the dance being sloppy > because they’re just so excited by dancing and the cool music. > > The dances I’m planning to use are very basic (Galopede, LaBastringue, a > scatter mixer, some version of duke of Kents waltz etc.) > > So if you have related experience: Have people been into the music so much > they don’t mind that they’re finding it hard to dance with the phrase and > remember the dance? Are you able to keep them together just by your > calling? Do they kind of figure it out? Other ideas? > > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCIG6nbyiUM > This is about 120 BPM. It has 16 beat parts that might be able to go A A’ B > B’ or some way to make it work > > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKTnO9fOcE8 > This one is around 140. Could be played slower. Take some orchestration… > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Qi1ApgkdCo > This one is very close to 120. Interesting how the bass starts on melody. > > So far I would find all of these tunes interesting to dance to. They are > constructed so differently than fiddle tunes by their primarily > rhythmic—long note melodies. It is the rhythmic section—which does include > fiddles—that make these dunes infective. > > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMU1RZVX5mQ > This one is a bit more fiddlistic, a nice melody. > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZhzFE2C-_w > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un4SsyvnKH4 > This one is more fiddlistic, too. Around 128 BPM, could be played slower. > > Cheers, > ~EriK > > > _______________________________________________ Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-le...@lists.sharedweight.net
