Re: [Callers] Contras which feature a "Dublin Bay" figure

[Martha Wild via Callers]

To Ron,
> 
> 
> Personally, I find Dublin Bay in a contra dance an exercise of "why aren't we 
> just going down the hall?" It just feels gimmicky to me. But I enjoy the 
> dance Dublin Bay - so it's not a criticism on the figure, but its use.
> 
I don’t feel this way at all about this figure. I called “Please Don’t Call Me 
Surely” last weekend, after all the sharing of various Dublin Bay figures here 
got me thinking about them, and because of lots of rain resulting in low 
turnout at the start, I jumped in to dance. The transition from forward 
movement to continuing backward as you turn towards your neighbor when done 
smoothly and with brio is a heck of a lot of fun. We had a few beginners but 
they caught on quickly so no one was refusing to move and blocking the rest of 
the lines, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. I don’t think it’s just 
gratuitous,it’s a good move in its own right.

Martha

Re: [Callers] Contras which feature a "Dublin Bay" figure ("Pivot the Line", yay)

[Roger Hayes via Callers]

"Pivot the Line" is a good dance; I called it at our regular Madison dance
tonight, it went well. I enjoyed seeing the dancers figure out how to dance
the unfamiliar figures -- nothing was too hard, the beginners got through
it fine, and people enjoyed refining the timing for the Dublin Bay figure.
I taught it without being very precise on the timing, to give people the
joy of discovery.

It was interesting to me that practically none of the dancers pre-bent the
line for the A2. I think the 2's were enjoying the swoop across the set to
start the (figure formerly known as a) gypsy; it's more dramatic than the
usual oh-you're-here-already start of that figure.

- Roger H

On Wed, Jan 18, 2017 at 9:28 PM, QuiAnn2 via Callers <
callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

> I’ve also written a dance with this down the hall figure in it. I like to
> call it early in the evening since it’s very connected and has “rest” time
> for each couple. I haven’t run it through the Shared Weight gauntlet to see
> if anyone else has written it. Please let me know if it’s already out there.
>
> *Pivot the Line*
> by Jacqui Grennan, 5/1/2016
> Contra/Improper/Easy
>
> A1 ---
> Four steps down the hall, turn alone, rejoin hands in lines of 4
> Four more steps down the hall, walking backwards
> Four steps up the hall, turn alone, rejoin hands in lines of 4
> Four more steps up the hall, walking backwards. Bend the line
> A2 ---
> (16) 2’s gypsy RIGHT/swing, face up to same N’s
> B1 ---
> (16) Same N B
> B2 ---
> (8) 1’s DSD across set
> (8) 1’s P Sw (2’s get ready for DTH, 1’s end the swing facing down between
> new neighbors).
>
>
>
>

Re: [Callers] Another vote for "jets" and "rubies"

[Michael Barraclough via Callers]

I guess that I am a Luddite. Here's how I see it.

Somewhere between 80-90% of the population is 'straight'. Surely, we
want these people as well to come to our dances.  It can be difficult enough to 
get past the dance lingo without adding the complexity of renaming labels for 
people that almost everyone already understands. To me, what really matters is 
that we run dances where everyone accepts everyone else's sexuality; where 
individual dancers can feel free to dance either role; where everyone is 
welcome. I am not convinced that 'non-straight' individuals are put off by the 
historical labels that we use, rather the lack of the 3 conditions that I have 
just outlined. 

Census data show the U.S. adult population is about 239m. Searching the
web I can find around 300 contra dances, 150 English Country Dances and
1000 MWSD clubs. My generous guess is that less than 100,000 people go
to these dances, less than 50,000 if we ignore MWSD. Did you know that over 
700,000 people in the U.S. own a ferret? That means there are 7x as many people 
in the USA who own a ferret compared to the number of people who go to our 
dances! 

Let's put less rather than more barriers in the way of getting those
who don't dance with us (that's 99.6% of the population) to join us.

Michael Barraclough
www.michaelbarraclough.com



On Tue, 2017-01-24 at 16:19 -0500, Ron Blechner via Callers wrote:
> I know I'd appreciate it if people had new suggestions, they'd review
> existing considerations for what makes terms usable. Things like 1:2
> syllable ratio, distinct vowel sounds - these disqualify a lot of
> terms as being unfeasible for the same reason "bare arms / arm bands"
> as terms are not preferable. The PDF spreadsheet that Dugan linked is
> the result of my study with teamwork and sourcing from many dancers.
> 
> Best,
> Ron Blechner
> 
> 
> On Jan 20, 2017 7:28 PM, "Keith Tuxhorn via Callers"  haredweight.net> wrote:
> > This conversation exhausts me,  even though I know and accept it's
> > all part of the folk process.
> > 
> > So I will make my one contribution... two terms I thought of a
> > couple weeks ago.
> > 
> > Mun and Wem.
> > 
> > They sound enough like the current terms that the brains of both
> > callers and dancers can make an easy transition. They're made-up
> > words, so they have no gender. And they're short. And easy to say.
> > 
> > Mun and Wem.
> > 
> > Okay, I've done my bit.
> > 
> > Keith Tuxhorn
> > Springfield IL
> > 
> > On Thu, Jan 19, 2017 at 4:04 PM, Dugan Murphy via Callers  > lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
> > > Since it was an article about my dance series that started this
> > > conversation about role terms, I'll offer that the primary reason
> > > we chose "jets" and "rubies" as gender-free terms is so that
> > > regular contra dancers from other places can come in and dance
> > > without needing anything to be explained to them since the terms
> > > are pretty similar to "gents" and "ladies."  
> > > 
> > > We also took a look at this graphic of Ron Blechner's analysis of
> > > gender-free role terms people have been talking about: http://amh
> > > erstcontra.org/ContraDanceRoleTerms.pdf
> > > 
> > > We may not use "jets" and "rubies" forever, but we figured we'd
> > > give it a try.  There didn't seem to be any reasons not to try
> > > and there are certainly plenty of reasons to try.  
> > > 
> > > Most men at our dance dance as jets and most women dance as
> > > rubies, but for the few who dance opposite, switch around, or
> > > whose gender expression doesn't fit the man/woman binary, I'd
> > > like to think that formally separating dance roles from gender is
> > > validating in a meaningful way.
> > > 
> > > Dugan Murphy
> > > Portland, Maine
> > > dugan at duganmurphy.com
> > > 
> > > www.DuganMurphy.com
> > > www.PortlandIntownContraDance.com
> > > www.NufSed.consulting
> > > 
> > > 
> > > ___
> > > Callers mailing list
> > > Callers@lists.sharedweight.net
> > > http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/callers-sharedweight.n
> > > et
> > > 
> > 
> > 
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> > 
> 
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Re: [Callers] Another vote for "jets" and "rubies"

[Ron Blechner via Callers]

I know I'd appreciate it if people had new suggestions, they'd review
existing considerations for what makes terms usable. Things like 1:2
syllable ratio, distinct vowel sounds - these disqualify a lot of terms as
being unfeasible for the same reason "bare arms / arm bands" as terms are
not preferable. The PDF spreadsheet that Dugan linked is the result of my
study with teamwork and sourcing from many dancers.

Best,
Ron Blechner

On Jan 20, 2017 7:28 PM, "Keith Tuxhorn via Callers" <
callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

> This conversation exhausts me,  even though I know and accept it's all
> part of the folk process.
>
> So I will make my one contribution... two terms I thought of a couple
> weeks ago.
>
> Mun and Wem.
>
> They sound enough like the current terms that the brains of both callers
> and dancers can make an easy transition. They're made-up words, so they
> have no gender. And they're short. And easy to say.
>
> Mun and Wem.
>
> Okay, I've done my bit.
>
> Keith Tuxhorn
> Springfield IL
>
> On Thu, Jan 19, 2017 at 4:04 PM, Dugan Murphy via Callers <
> callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>
>> Since it was an article about my dance series that started this
>> conversation about role terms, I'll offer that the primary reason we chose
>> "jets" and "rubies" as gender-free terms is so that regular contra dancers
>> from other places can come in and dance without needing anything to be
>> explained to them since the terms are pretty similar to "gents" and
>> "ladies."
>>
>> We also took a look at this graphic of Ron Blechner's analysis of
>> gender-free role terms people have been talking about:
>> http://amherstcontra.org/ContraDanceRoleTerms.pdf
>>
>> We may not use "jets" and "rubies" forever, but we figured we'd give it a
>> try.  There didn't seem to be any reasons not to try and there are
>> certainly plenty of reasons to try.
>>
>> Most men at our dance dance as jets and most women dance as rubies, but
>> for the few who dance opposite, switch around, or whose gender expression
>> doesn't fit the man/woman binary, I'd like to think that formally
>> separating dance roles from gender is validating in a meaningful way.
>>
>> Dugan Murphy
>> Portland, Maine
>> dugan at duganmurphy.com
>> www.DuganMurphy.com
>> www.PortlandIntownContraDance.com
>> www.NufSed.consulting
>>
>>
>> ___
>> Callers mailing list
>> Callers@lists.sharedweight.net
>> http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/callers-sharedweight.net
>>
>>
>
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>
>