A thought on the topic of dance angels... Would it be helpful to try matching age groups of the beginners and angels? Having a shared social reference frame (for lack of a better phrase) could help incorporate those dancers more comfortably? I mention this as we had a slug of incoming students from an area private school arrive at our dance as newcomers and our friendly and helpful older crew did the community thing - which was great but slightly put them off. The lack of folks in their age group came up in my later conversation with them - they had a great time but were looking to mix more with folks of their own age. Of course that's a chicken/egg thing (I encouraged them to bring more of their friends next time), but...
On Mon, Jul 17, 2023 at 5:00 PM Heitzso via Organizers < organizers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote: > Seconding a lot of what's been said. > > My wife, Jennifer Horrocks, and I hosted 2 regional organizers retreats > back in '17 & '18 and have our next this upcoming weekend. This came up in > the two pre-covid retreats with some form of dance angels the most common > mechanism used to integrate the new dancers. (informal ambassadors or > formal special name tags varied). I agree that 60% new dancers is > difficult; that's a higher % of beginners than what most dances deal with. > > My reason to chime in is to flag the *variation in demographics* for both > your experienced and inexperienced dancers affects the dance. > > This upcoming Saturday ContraForce will play at Sautee's dance in N > Georgia (in the middle of nowhere) in a very old gym. Many of our retreat > folks will take that evening off to attend. It is a dance at which it's not > uncommon for 20+% to be new dancers. The most successful callers (in my > opinion) have, after the lesson, started off with easy but not trivial > contras and steadily built up from there which takes advantage of the > experienced dancers knowledge and doesn't bore the experienced dancers to > death.. 20% is not 60%. Mentioning because there are always beginners at > that dance and not all callers handle them well. > > I believe it's important to know the age and hence physical and mental > capability of the new dancers. Sautee's dance tends to be family oriented > so the new (& experienced) dancers range in age from teens to seniors. I > went to a ContraForce dance at Clemson University several years ago. The % > of new dancers was around your 60%, but the new dancers were entirely > college students. The caller was a student and not a solid caller. The new > dancers took incredibly quickly to the dance. *60% beginners? No problem!* > > I was at a River Falls Lodge pre-covid dance packed with so many lines of > dancers that it was easy to get confused with what's up and down and > sideways. Dancers were mostly students (under 25?) and, I'd guess, 40% > beginners. Caller came late so no beginners' lesson. The caller just > started everyone off with a simple contra and built up from there. No muss. > No fuss. Worked quite well. I believe the caller's calmness and just doing > it worked ... never any question that it wouldn't. > > Another data point is Lake Eden Arts Festival which, pre-covid, had 5,000 > people attending. Their gym, "Brookside", had contra dances with (at peak) > some 400 dancers. Many (??%) dancers are drunk/high beginners who drop in > since they're already there enjoying the weekend. They have fun for awhile > then leave. Don't know what to say about it. It is what it is. > > Another data point that I've heard about is a tourist oriented Virginia > city in which the contra dance location was, for awhile, downtown in the > tourist district. They struggled with older non-contra tourists > overwhelming their small dance. I believe their solution was to move the > dance out of the tourist center. > > Wishing everyone well as we keep the dance going, > -Heitzso > _______________________________________________ > Organizers mailing list -- organizers@lists.sharedweight.net > To unsubscribe send an email to organizers-le...@lists.sharedweight.net >
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