Since it looks like we're sharing experiences, evolutions, and thoughts on calling terms, I'll throw in mine, and it's going to be all over the map. Let me stipulate that I'm a cis-het guy and my relationships since, oh, 1990 have been with women I've met at dances.
My first country-dance exposure that stuck (not the "Skip to my lou" in third grade or the square dancing in 6th grade) was in 1978, Regency dancing at a science fiction convention. The roles were "ladies" and "gentlemen" (not "gents" because it set the wrong tone according to the dance leader who'd brought this to science fiction), and since there were more women interested in doing this than men, I got used to, from day 1, "gentlemen" who were women and very occasionally "ladies" who were men. Continued dancing just that in Los Angeles until moving to the SF Bay Area in 1985. Wanted to continue Regency dancing, there wasn't anyway, so I became a Regency dance leader and then got exposed to the existing Bay Area ECD and contra communities and started doing those dances. Would rather dance than not dance, so if there were more men than women (as I thought of it then; now I'm usually careful to say "male-presenting" or "female-presenting" so as not to make any assumptions about their self-perceptions) I'd dance with other men. (In those circumstances sometimes I'd take my bandana and tie it over my head as a babushka to make what role I was dancing clear.). I really didn't find ballroom swing with men any more intimate than two-hand turn - of course I expect nobody had any real intention to be intimate. I don't find it necessarily intimate with women either. If there's chemistry, an English-style far apart right shoulder round with eye contact only or a half-figure 8 can be sexy, if there isn't than even a waltz won't be. What I found unpleasantly inti mate was the ceilidh swing some guys insisted on - arm across the belly at my waist. Not so much because it was a guy, as because touching my belly is just a lot more intrusive than my shoulder blade or my hand. Always happy to accept a cross-hand turn from anybody who wants to do that. Was successfully evangelized to globally-based calling of English by Chris Sackett and Brooke Friendly in about 2000. It made sense to me to address calls to as many people as possible - "first corners turn two hands" is fewer syllables and offers more agency to the woman than "first man turn second woman two hands", which is how some of those dances were written down. So since then I've been calling as much in terms of "first corners / second corners / 1s / 2s / partner/neighbor" as i conveniently can and there are a lot of dances where that just completely covers it. My motivation at the time was efficiency and agency, but when I learned about the problems for some non-binary people in having to choose a gender-named role I was reenforced in my tendency to go without those role names. (If I called away from my home dances I'd use whatever terminology was in use there, but now I just do mostly-inconspicuous gender-free without asking permission. No real complaints so far.) Since coming back from the pandemic shutdown I've been defining the first corners/diagonals by landmarks in the room. (I used to try "face your partner and look at the person diagonally across from you. If your right shoulders are closer together you're first corners; left shoulders are second corners:" and that never worked. I think also the use of the landmarks gives people the idea that the diagonals exist independently of who's standing there, and as an added bonus you don't have to figure out right and left to know what diagonal you're on.) I still sometimes have to use "first corner people" as a sort of momentary role name if I want them to do something and they're not at home, and sometimes "first corner top" to identify that person, and sometimes landmarks for the walls. I personally really don't much like "left file" and "right file" for which side of the set you're on both because that's more right/left stuff [I don't personally have a right left problem but know some fine dancers who do] and because it's not obvious whose right and whose left those lines are. At least larks and robins are defined by their initial relations to their partners as they stand side by side, whatever direction they're facing. I'm I guess 38 years in to calling English, and about 17 years in to calling contras (maybe a quarter or a sixth as often as English). I've called and danced gents/ladies, men/women, bands/barearms, larks/ravens (had about 90 seconds of trouble the first time I danced to those terms because I personally strongly identify with ravens as large loud birds and not with larks (I'm a late riser and not a sweet melodious singer) but subsequently been fine), and larks/robins (neither of which I identify with). I thoroughly don't want to try naming the roles "left" and "right". I've definitely done beginner lessons for brand new dancers, and I've had rooms of infrequent dances, but I haven't tried teaching contra dancing in a green field with no experience. (I have done that with easy English dances.) I personally don't want to promote something radically different enough that people who learned from me can't manage if they go to a contra dance somewhere else, but i can see where the geographically isolated people have to do what works for them and what fulfills their vision for the kind of dance community they're trying to build. I haven't done positional contra - despite a lot of experience with it for English - probably because nobody's making me; I get gigs without it, I don't get complaints that I'm not doing it - and because I'd really have to retool. Role name changes I can just drop in without even rewriting the "card"; positonal is a real rethink, and because I haven't gotten into it seriously I don't know the answers to questions like how you get people to internalize which side of a swing they end on - Having troule thinking of any English dances where a neighbor swing is progressive, but I guess Levi Jackson kind of breaks if you end that swing on the wrong side - or whether there's any difference in improper dances. (Now I'll say "as you face the other couple, the person on the left side is a lark, the person on the right is a robin; if that's not the role you want change places with your partner"; doesn't seem like I should tell them they must cross, since we're not aligning roles with gender p resentations any more.). Over in English land, there are dances where the first corners have one role and the second corners have another role, and you have the choice of treating that as a dance where you cross over when you're out to keep the same role, or don't cross over and "dance the whole dance". There are definitely some dancers who don't cross but are then surprised that their role has changed. I have sympathy for Ridge's feelings and if I run into him in line will try to deal with whatever he offers me (prefer symmetric cross-hand swing if doing something nonstandard, provided you know what side you're supposed to end on), but I will also note that I've been told more than once by women that creepy/predatory guys are somewhat deterred from attending dances where they might have to swing other men. (Oh, one other thought - this relevant to something Julian said - while I've heard plenty of arguments that seemed specious to me about the unsuitability of bird names (including somebody trying to make the bank shot that ravens were reminiscent of crows and "crow" has a racist history - Jim Crow, the three racially-coded crows in "Dumbo"), and I think people should just try and get used to it, I don't think it's intellectually dishonest or incoherent to say "I'm not a bird" and "Gents and Ladies are just role names". The class of thing to which "Larks" and "Robins" belong is avian, not human. The class of thing to which "Gents" and "Ladies" belong is human. That's a genuine distinction - one that's immaterial to me but perhaps material to them. [Now, I never heard anybody object to being called "armband" on the grounds that they're not an accessory, but to get called a "band" or a "bare" you had to step into an explicitly queer space. - nobody tried to bring armbands into play a t existing "gents"/"ladies" contra around here. That's all just a nitpick. If what we have is a coded objection from women who like dancing with men and men who like dancing with women and who feel that that's what the dance is really about - well, there's no role name that would make them happy, (I tend to privilege accommodating people who would be harmed without the accommodation - those non-binary people whose gender identity is under threat 24/7 - over people who will be somewhat disappointed but get some of what they want (men who have to swing with other men as well as with women, but also nobody's requiring same-sex partnerships, so in most dances you're guaranteed half the swings are with someone you picked).] Okay, that's all over the map. -- Alan _______________________________________________ Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-le...@lists.sharedweight.net
