Re: [Callers] Role Scramblers dances with balances

[Bob Stein via Callers]

I don’t recall dancing this with Ted back in the 70’s, but I do remember a 
dance at the Concord Scout House where I was in a square right in front of the 
stage.   After the walk through we all switched gender roles and danced the 
entire dance that way.   Ted quickly found another square to watch.
Bob

Re: [Callers] Challenging Contras

[Roger Hayes via Callers]

"Fiddleheads" by Ted Sanella

- Roger Hayes

from mobile

Re: [Callers] Challenging Contras

[Bev Young via Callers]

Some of my favorites are ones that have end effects, but they are fun to
dance once people know to expect that.  Often they have dancing on the
diagonals and progressions in the middle of the dance.  Here are some:

Are You Most Done?  by Russell Owen
You Married My Daughter by Jacob Bloom
Bases Loaded by Lydee King, Tom Thoreau and Jim Saxe
Our House by Dean Snipes
Dulcimer Lady by Jim Kitch

Bev Young

Re: [Callers] Challenging Contras

[Dale Wilson via Callers]

One of my favorites, but it not easy to teach is *There is No Way To Peace;
Peace is the Way* by Erik Hoffman:

http://www.erikhoffman.com/peace.html

And, although *I* don't think it's hard, this dance has two new moves:

*Gold Star Wednesday **by Dale Wilson, (2012)*


*...because good days deserve gold stars, and Wednesday was a great
Day!**Contra
improper*

*A1 * Neighbor Balance & Swing
*A2* Right hand star 3 places; Invert the star(see the note below)
  Left hand star
*B1 *Gents loop right around neighbor (behind) then cross. Meet partner
  Ladies follow gent’s path around the loop but don’t cross.  Meet
Partner.
  Partner Swing
*B2 *Circle left 3 places; Circle Balance; California Twirl


*Notes *  Identify Gent's Home place before start of dance.
Both stars end with the gent in his home place.

Invert the star means:
  Gents reach across their body (over the old star) with their free
(left) hand
to their neighbor who is behind them.  Ladies take gent's hand with
their free (left) hand.
  Let go of the original star.  Make an arch.
  Gents step back slightly to allow ladies to step thru the arch.
   Joined left hands come down into LH Star.

On Fri, Apr 8, 2016 at 1:31 PM, Bradley Smith via Callers <
callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

> Hello all! I'll be calling a session of challenging contras at a dance
> weekend next month, and find myself lacking in the aforementioned
> challenging contras. I want to keep the session balanced, with a mix of
> dances that are mind-bending or heavily technical as well as some dances
> that are a step or so below that but that still have something interesting
> or unique. Would any of you be so kind as to share some of your favorite
> challenging dances? Thank you in advance!
>
> ___
> Callers mailing list
> Callers@lists.sharedweight.net
> http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/callers-sharedweight.net
>
>


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Re: [Callers] Role Scramblers dances with balances

[Aahz via Callers]

On Fri, Apr 08, 2016, James Saxe via Callers wrote:
>
> The sort of stuff I'm talking about strikes me as more suited for
> a challenging session at a dance camp/weekend than for a regular
> evening dance--and even more so now than at the time of Ted's visits
> to California 25-30 years ago, on account of the generally lower
> average familiarity of contras dancers with squares.  Indeed, if
> someone were calling at the kind of dance camp/weekend where the
> acceptable number of squares to call is quite limited, I'd hope they'd
> lean towards squares that they were confident they could put across
> without stressing the dancers' readiness to remain cheerful in the
> face of confusion.

Note that the vast majority of MWSD dancers would have even more
difficulty.  I'm at the Queer Contra Dance Camp this weekend, and a *lot*
of us are happily swapping gender roles in the middle of the dance
(including a dance last night that including a Right & Left Grand -- yes,
it was a 4x4).  Contrariwise, relatively few square dancers these days
can manage to dance to the music.
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