First off, 60 new people is a good problem! No matter how advanced anyone
is, if we don't make it welcoming for new people we won't have a dance
anymore.
There's a lot to be said about being a welcoming group that people would
like to coming back to. Organizers and dance angels can invite and suggest
that dancing with experienced dancers will help them learn more quickly.
The organizer who does announcements can mention it. But the most of the
dance management falls on the caller and their programming on-the-fly.
I'm not sure how it is where you are, but in Southeastern New England the
newbies and beginners wear themselves out quickly with skipping, bouncing,
and laughing, so not many last until after the break. Callers can pull out
more challenging dances after the break. They also need to accommodate for
other factors, like the heat, masking and the age/fitness level of dancers.
When encouraging people to couple with someone else, please be careful not
to go past suggesting and inviting to pushing or demanding. It can backfire
on you if you push people to do something they don't feel comfortable
doing. Even when people do take the advice, they oftentimes end up pairing
off again with their friends afterwards. Beyond the caller encouraging
them, and dancers suggesting and inviting, that's as far as you can
comfortably go.
I have myself been told to dance with a particular new person by someone
who has good intentions to include people, but also has a tendency to
micromanage. My response is that I'm able to make my own decisions about
when I dance and who I chose to dance with.
Re: New Callers-
I'd prefer to call it "home growing" rather than "grooming", but if you've
got a group you're working with, it would be worth getting regular
consultation with experienced callers on things like dance management. CDSS
is a good source for materials also.
On Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 1:46 AM John Little via Organizers <
organizers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
> Following this thread.
>
> I'm in San Luis Obispo; similar situation. We've been thinking about this
> a lot lately, and I think we're starting to see some good improvement.
>
> It also sounds like at your dance, you might be having undercurrents of
> divisions between newer and returning dancers. This might be what's giving
> you trouble? The fact is that beginners learn best when they dance with as
> many different dancers as possible, so your goal is to make it so everyone
> *wants
> to* dance with everyone else.
>
> Both new dancers and returning dancers need to be motivated in different
> ways. New dancers should know that they'll learn the quickest and have the
> easiest time when dancing with an experienced dancer. Returning dancers
> should be reminded that while it's less exciting to dance with new dancers,
> the delayed reward of well-attended, intricate, energetic dances will be
> worth it. The juice is worth the squeeze!
>
> For organizers, the truth is that we can't do very much during a dance.
> The caller has the most direct impact on whether people like dancing and
> want to keep coming back. So as an organizer, our best things we can do
> involve chatting closely with the caller about the crowd we expect and the
> outcomes we're hoping for. It helps tremendously when the caller is close
> to the community and knows how they dance, so mentoring new callers from
> within your community sounds like it will help you with your goal. We are
> also mentoring two new callers (editor's note: I'm one of them), and
> because new callers need practice more than once a month, we've rustled up
> a few of our more experienced dancers and met up outside of our monthly
> dance to practice walkthroughs, demos, live calling, lessons, etc.
>
> In addition, here are some of the actionable things that we have tried.
> Not necessarily a magic bullet; try what you like and see what sticks.
>
> - Two smaller breaks instead of a big one in the middle. New dancers need
> more breaks. We did this for only 3-4 dances, and we've since gone back to
> one break, but it seemed to be what people wanted during that time.
>
> - Identifying some particularly *friendly, approachable* returners who
> are willing to be volunteered into dancing with newbies. Let beginners know
> that these people are ultra-available to dance with. ("*Maria* - you
> should dance with *Claude* for this dance, they're great at teaching
> beginners!"). Maybe make some pins or ribbons for them to wear.
>
> - Encourage callers to really put an emphasis on pairing new dancers with
> returning dancers - both explicitly and implicitly. If there's a group of
> new dancers who are only dancing with each other or throwing off a line,
> let the caller know that it's okay to break them up into new lines and
> encourage them to find new partners. And ask the caller to reiterate the
> statements above to motivate mingling.
>
> - Ask callers to focus on building up your group's technical skills by
> calling multiple dances with the same intermediate/advanced figure.
> Recently, we called three dances with hey figures just within the second
> half. We were able to build up to a full hey with a ricochet, our beginners
> mastered it well, and our returning dancers could satisfy their itch for
> complexity and see that the whole group is improving. This one needs a
> delicate touch, because focusing on one figure too much can become boring.
> But I can easily imagine beginners building up to more intricate moves -
> allemande & orbit, tricky wavy line moves, left diagonal chains, etc, if
> the dance program is carefully thought out to build up the basics first.
>
> - Encourage your returning dancers to help out in the ways listed above -
> ask them to become the approachable helpers and make pins for them. Ask
> them to show up to help callers practice and get pizza for them.
>
> John L
>
> On Sun, Jul 16, 2023 at 8:22 PM Sandy Seiler via Organizers <
> organizers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>
>> I am in Lawrence Kansas. Since Covid we have consistently had a larger
>> number of new dancers than experienced dancers at each dance. This evening
>> we had a very well attended dance with approx 70 people. I would estimate
>> that at least 60-70% were inexperienced dancers. We are also in the
>> process of grooming new callers and had a callers workshop in March so we
>> are trying to integrate those folks in and get them more experience. I've
>> seen on other posts that a dance can easily absorb about 25% beginners, but
>> we have that formula pretty much flipped. We dance monthly which is a
>> hindrance. Experienced dancers are fatigued of not getting to do more
>> complicated dances. This has been happening for a long time and we need to
>> make some changes so that we have a larger percentage of experienced
>> dancers. Suggestions?
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