Keep going, Rob! Love reading these reports. Lisa
> On Jan 31, 2024, at 12:39 AM, Robert Matson via Contra Callers > <contracall...@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote: > > Hi All, > > Please join us in celebrating a significant milestone for our college dance: > more than 50 dancers this past Friday! Last school year we averaged around > 20/dance. Last year's core dancers were seniors. This school year we have > been averaging around 10/dance, but our core dancers are mostly freshman. > (Yay!) > > Video clip from the dance: > Dance: 'The Flircle." Ellen Hostetter calling. Band: Bobby Fjsh and the > Magic River > https://youtu.be/TGWzuIk2LTE > (For videos, we've promised to obscure dancers' features in order to maintain > privacy.) > > As some of you know, who have met us on-line or in-person, we started our > dance from scratch, with all first-time dancers and a novice caller who > hadn't done much contra. (That said, our novice caller is a professional > educator and researcher whose formative art was ballet and tap). At last > Friday's dance, about 80% were first-timers. The other 20% were > beginner-level. > > To share, with the hope that some of you can benefit, we've identified > several possible explanations for the high turnout. The primary new effort > was that we hosted a pop-up art exhibit in the space, lasting for the > 120-minutes for which we had the studio. Long story short, pursuant to our > floating the idea in our regular announcement and inviting artists to pin-up, > one of our core dancers volunteered to curate a show and spoke with her art > professor who, in turn, liked the idea and gave the students credit if they > participated. From that, a good 25-30 student artists came with work to > pin-up -- or put down -- we had one sculpture -- who had never heard of > contra, who may have never put a foot down on a beat, and had no intent of > dancing. With encouragement, all but one (due to health issues) joined in > for the whole dance. > > The student who curated has offered to continue creating exhibits and we plan > to do this every time. (We dance 2x/month.) > > We think it was a rogue wave of sorts. Another student, it so happened, on > the same eve, got a group of his friends to come, and several students from > the outdoors club showed up. And then several of our usual dancers, who we > hadn't seen for a while, showed up. > > And then one of our usual dancers was freaked out by the size of the crowd, > she told us, and left. :-) > > Luckily, a reporter and photographer from the school newspaper also visited > on the same eve! > > So, a wonderful tsunami of first timers. > > We look forward to seeing how many keep returning. > > Program: > Circassian Circle > The Flircle > - Intermission, art show, hob-nobbing > - Swing workshop > Lucky 7 Mixer > > We did three walkthroughs of each dance and started 10 min. late due to > distractions caused by hanging the art show. We dance Larks/Robins. > > All best, > Rob > - - - - - - - - - - - > Robert Matson > Cell: (917) 626-2675 > > _______________________________________________ > Contra Callers mailing list -- contracall...@lists.sharedweight.net > To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-le...@lists.sharedweight.net
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