[Organizers] Re: Dance Policy Decisions (e.g.: roles) Was: Attracting young dancers

[Harris Lapiroff via Organizers]

I had an interesting chat with someone this out this week and what we came up 
with is that there might be two reasons we could think of why a dance might 
leave role terms up to the caller (note, I myself am both caller and organizer):
 1. It's such a contentious issue in their community that no one feels that 
authority to or wants to take responsibility for making a decision. In this 
case I think it is a unfair to the dancers (who might want to know what terms 
will be called) and caller (who might have to deal with blowback at the dance) 
to pass that responsibility off to the caller. Alternatively,
 2. It's such a non-issue in their community that the dancers really don't care 
what terms are being used and the caller is the most likely person to have an 
opinion. We callers are an opinionated bunch! If a "callers choice" policy 
allows the dance series book more callers with a minimum of fuss, and the 
dancers genuinely don't care, I think that's pretty justifiable.
I guess there's also "3. the series is in the process of choosing new role 
terms" but I think that should be done with more deliberateness and 
communication than solely "caller's choice."

Harris Lapiroff

Dance Caller and Organizer
Boston Intergenerational Dance Advocates Board (Cambridge MA)
Pinewoods Camp, Inc Board (Plymouth MA)
https://chromamine.com/contra/

On Wed, Nov 1, 2023, at 8:08 PM, Jeff Raymond via Organizers wrote:
> Hi Don, thank you for responding to my comment. 
> Let me first say I'm delighted how folks younger than I are stepping up and 
> keeping our tradition vital.
> Before we get lost in a swamp with these threads and multiple responses I'll 
> clarify my statement. 
> It was strictly in response to someone who appeared to be making a blanket 
> statement  that all dance series should require callers to use gender neutral 
> terms as a way to draw in new dancers.
> (Why it is in this thread).
> That's a pretty much a control thing, in my mind.
> I believe series should be free to set the stsndards as they wish.
> I am glad to see the ever increasing inclusiveness of our events and feel, 
> generally,  things are on the right track.
> But in my belief individuals should be somewhat free to call, to dance, to 
> play in a way they are most comfortable. 
> We are all artists, in the end.
> There is a saying  "people will cone fir the band but leave because of the 
> caller" which if the organizers pay attention the market will sort out those 
> who dancers find onerous and objectionable.
> Culture shift is not a bad thing and in my mind nothing draws better than 
> exuberance.
> In the spirit of the joy of dance, Jeff 
> 
> On Sun, Oct 29, 2023, 4:14 PM Don Veino via Organizers 
>  wrote:
>> As a caller and organizer, this is a hot button topic for me. Please, if you 
>> are organizing a dance, take responsibility for this decision and make it 
>> clearly public to your participants in advance. I understand you may be 
>> uncomfortable making this choice and possibly want to "please everybody" by 
>> leaving it to the caller but that just sets up the worst dynamic for all.
>> 
>> My take is that the dance's organizers *own* the culture and implementation 
>> policies of their dance. If you would not leave it up to the caller to 
>> decide to do swing dance instead or declare the admission is half off for a 
>> given event, then you shouldn't leave such a topic to them either.
>> 
>> "Traditional", Larks/ Robins, positional - alternating per event, whatever - 
>> make the determination and let the people coming know in advance.
>> 
>> I personally will no longer accept bookings from a dance that doesn't have a 
>> stated role term policy. I will call with the terms stated (or decline the 
>> event). I had a booking for a longstanding dance which changed from decades 
>> of "Traditional" to "Caller's Choice" after booking me, with no heads up. I 
>> first heard of it when I started hearing from people advocating for one or 
>> the other terms, as "my choice". The organizers wouldn't make the call and 
>> the publicity was already out there. Bad scene for all, not the way to set 
>> up dance joy.
>> 
>> On Sun, Oct 29, 2023, 1:28 PM Sandy Seiler via Organizers 
>>  wrote:
>> 
>> Currently terminology is the caller's decision.  So it goes back and forth 
>> from gendered to non gendered.  That is not mentioned on the website, but I 
>> do know that at least one of our callers has requested that the Lawrence 
>> board make a decision about it so the callers don't have that responsibility 
>> and possible fall out from it.
>> 
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[Organizers] Re: Struggling to Revitalize the core post covid

[Harris Lapiroff via Organizers]

I agree with a lot of the stuff that has already been said. This sounds like a 
pretty challenging situation, but, as others have said, also an opportunity to 
grow those many beginners into experienced members of your community. 

A lot of the advice that’s been given is for callers, but, as an organizer, you 
can put that guidance into the information you send to callers ahead of time. 
If they need to stick to simple dances, tell them so. If they need to include a 
few complex dances, but later in the evening, tell them that too. At BIDA our 
guide encourages callers to program a mixer early in the evening, which I 
personally think goes a long way toward making beginners comfortable dancing 
with people other than the person they came with, which in turn enables more 
complex dances. Though with over 50% newcomers, the impact of that may be 
limited to start with. (Maybe 50% of our callers take this advice.)

I’d also do what you can to encourage beginners to come back—Don’s suggestions 
on this front are good. Those beginners will become experienced dancers before 
long if you can get them to stick around. 

You could also hold special events as a way to draw out experienced dancers who 
are not excited at the moment about coming to a regular dance, but might make 
an effort for something more occasional. An couple hours of advanced dancing in 
the afternoon before an evening dance can satisfy the need for more complex 
dances and hopefully some of those experienced dancers will stick around for 
the evening dance as long as they’re out. If you can pair this with a much 
beloved band and caller, so much the better. 

Best of luck!
Harris

On Mon, Jul 17, 2023, at 3:34 PM, Joe Harrington via Organizers wrote:
> Hi Sandy,
> 
> I think a lot of dances are facing this or similar situations. There isn’t a 
> silver bullet but there a lots of things you can try. What will work will 
> depend on your community - and not on mine or anyone else’s on this list. Do 
> what works, try stuff, and let us know how it goes, the good and the bad. I’m 
> going to mix in some general community-building thoughts as well as address 
> your specific concern about bringing back your core, in part because many may 
> not be there to be brought back.
> 
> First, two observations:
> 
> Lots of people trimmed down their commitments in the pandemic and are 
> enjoying a bit more free time. Many of those are not coming back, and neither 
> are some elders who have slowed down, those who moved away, etc. So, don’t 
> equate success with bringing them all back. Build a new core of prior and 
> newer dancers.
> 
> Also, a trend that definitely accelerated in the pandemic is a decrease in 
> personal commitment to activity groups, even among older folks but especially 
> among younger. What they are loyal to is their friend group or partner.  More 
> people pick and choose what they’ll do this weekend on the spur of the moment 
> with their friends or partner. This is a real bummer both because you need a 
> bigger community to get a critical mass and because skill advances quickest 
> with frequent practice, which people don’t get if they only come occasionally.
> 
> So, some general things to try:
> 
> A good way to take advantage of the latter trend is to focus as much on 
> making the dance a fun social space where people come to be with friends they 
> only meet dancing, as on the dancing itself. 
> 
> Make the dancing itself the most fun it can be. With lots of beginners, 
> simple dances danced at tempo are more fun than complex dances taught forever 
> and then danced slowly, even for experienced dancers. Make sure your callers 
> know the kind of crowd they’ll get and that they should prepare simple but 
> fun dances. Keep a reasonable tempo, so it’s dancing and not just walking. 
> Several recent threads here listed simple-but-fun dances.
> 
> Make it a party all the time and give it a theme some of the time. People 
> love costumes (optional, of course), and there may be folks who are into 
> cosplay, decorating, fancier snack foods, etc. who can help. Advertise any 
> themed event, of course! Get on people’s calendars. Be on all the socials, 
> not just your generation’s. Kids have not done email or Facebook for well 
> over a decade.
> 
> Specific to your question of bringing back the core:
> 
> Reach out to your former core dancers and ask them in a positive way what 
> would get them to come out and dance. You’ll get some information, which you 
> can consider, but you’ll also be sending the message that they’re missed and 
> you want them back. Personal contact is better than an email blast. If 
> there’s a very large number, you could consider holding a private event on a 
> different night as a one-off welcome-back event. 
> 
> Pony up for a high-end band and caller and use that event as a 
> bring-them-back occasion. Reach out to the former core and personally invite 
> them. 
> 
> Make the last 2-4 dances each 

[Organizers] Re: Twitter hashtags

[Harris Lapiroff via Organizers]

I can’t speak to what Rich meant by “our desired audience” but I personally 
don’t think of Twitter as a place people go looking for local social dances to 
attend, so I think it’s not most social dances’ desired audience of “people who 
might come to a dance.” We use Facebook and Meetup to advertise events and are 
planning to branch out into Instagram as well.

(It’s possible this isn’t true of all communities. Maybe there are places where 
people really do use Twitter to find local events! But it’s not something I’ve 
encountered.)

> On May 9, 2023, at 11:11 AM, Weogo Reed via Organizers 
>  wrote:
> 
> Hi Rich,
> 
> I always thought of the folk scene as an inclusive community.
> "our desired audience"
> This hit me on a personal level.
> Why be exclusive?
> 
> Thanks and good health,  Weogo
> 
> 
>> On 5/9/2023 9:39 AM, Rich Dempsey via Organizers wrote:
>> We have disabled our Twitter account. In addition to our concerns with 
>> current management, we've found that keeping up with many social media 
>> accounts hard to manage. And some CDR organizers feel that Twitter doesn't 
>> align with our desired audience.
>> 
>> Rich Dempsey
>> Country Dancers of Rochester (NY)
>> 
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[Organizers] Re: Is it time to end COVID restrictions at most contra dances? HARD DATA

[Harris Lapiroff via Organizers]

I feel that we need science *and* community input to make good decisions as
organizers. I don't think either is sufficient alone. Plagiarizing a
comment from myself in a previous conversation about covid precautions that
took place on Facebook:

I think people who have been following the science and even agree on the
science might make different decisions about what precautions are valuable
based on factors that science hasn't yet or may never provide clarity on.
Some of them are scientific questions and some of them are not. And some of
them are questions that can *only* be answered by our community! Questions
like:

   - What is the exact nature and prevalence of long covid?
   - How do the risks of covid compare to risks we took in a prepandemic
   world?
   - How does our community value risk for pleasure?
   - Will things get less risky in the future?
   - How long is our community willing to wear masks while dancing? A year?
   Two years? Forever?
   - Does our community care if we exclude people who can't or won't get
   vaccinated?
   - Etc.

I think people can agree on the (mostly) settled science—how covid is
transmitted, how well masks and vaccines work, what the possible outcomes
of a covid infection are, who is most at risk—and still have very different
answers to these questions, many of which are pretty reasonable. We need
science *and* community input *and* organizer judgment to guide decisions.

Harris

On Tue, Jan 10, 2023 at 1:28 PM Dana Dwinell-Yardley via Organizers <
organizers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

> And here's a brief synopsis of the data and study Mac referenced, as
> written by Katelyn Jetelina (author of the newsletter Your Local
> Epidemiologist):
>
> ---
> Mask mandates in schools work
> What we know: Masks work on an individual level, but the effectiveness of
> population-level mandates is less understood.
>
> New info: A study from the New England Journal of Medicine compared
> schools in Massachusetts that kept the mask mandate to schools that removed
> the mask mandate after the statewide policy was rescinded. Schools that
> lifted masking had an additional 44.9 COVID-19 cases per 1000 students and
> staff. (Study can be viewed in full at
> https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2211029)
>
> Why does this matter? Mask mandates in large settings, like schools, work.
> This is important to know now or in future pandemics to keep kids in school.
> --
>
> On Tue, Jan 10, 2023, 12:40 PM Walker Sloan via Organizers <
> organizers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> Hey, all you organizers
>>
>> HARD DATA:
>>
>> On the issue of masks required OR optional, here is some actually
>> useful, vaguely understandable data, published by NEJM, New England
>> Journal of Medicine.  NEJM (Nee-gem) is one of the world premiere
>> medical journals.
>>
>> Since I'm interpreting this, my creds are an SB, MIT in physics, and an
>> engineer in medical devices.  I do numbers.  And I'm on the committee
>> for the Thursday Night Dance at Scout House in Concord MA.
>>
>> Attached is a summary sheet for a NEJM article on lifting the mask
>> mandate in Boston public schools.  My hypothesis -- opinion -- is that a
>> contra dance is comparable to packing a bunch of kids into a school.
>> You'll want to view the PDF to see what I'm talking about.
>>
>> The UPPER RIGHT GRAPH, the important lines are the lower three lines --
>> two red and one blue.  The red lines are the case rates 2 and 3 weeks
>> AFTER lifting the mask mandate.  The blue line is the case rate for
>> schools NOT lifting the mask mandate.  By engineering standards, the two
>> red lines peak about 50% higher than the blue line.
>>
>> In the RESULTS paragraph on the left, last sentence: "One third of the
>> Covid-19 cases that occurred..."  This is another way of expressing a
>> 50% increase.
>>
>> Do masks PREVENT Covid?  We all know they don't.  Neither do vaxes and
>> boosters.  What they do is stack the ODDS in favor of individuals and
>> COMMUNITIES not getting Covid.
>>
>> I strongly believe that stacking the odds is the responsible way to go.
>> I do NOT believe in basing policies on surveys of dancer preferences.
>>
>> Mac Sloan
>>
>> On 23/01/07 5:56 PM, Laura Alexander wrote:
>> > Hi Mac,
>> >
>> > My understanding of transmission risk is based on information from
>> > mainstream epidemiologists, not surveys. As a scientist not working in
>> > epidemiology, I'm curious for expert information and seek it out.
>> > Believe it or not, I still think our position is appropriate and
>> > responsible. I'm aware of these studies and the information you shared,
>> > but thank you for mentioning them. I'm happy to continue this
>> > conversation offline, but I'd hope you refrain from making assumptions
>> > in the future about what people understand.
>> >
>> > Laura
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Sat, Jan 7, 2023 at 3:27 PM Walker Sloan > > > wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> > "Our understanding on transmission 

[Organizers] Re: Is it time to end COVID restrictions at most contra dances?

[Harris Lapiroff via Organizers]

Julian:

> Like, how is this "both sides have a preference" narrative any different
from able-bodied people being like "Oh, well, I just don't like handicapped
ramps, I prefer steps"?

I think we're on similar pages. You seem to be agreeing it's OK if some
dances are mask-optional as long as not all of them are—which I think I
agree with. I definitely wouldn't advocate that every dance should drop
their masking right now. Right now in the Boston area, where I dance, I
believe there are *no* mask-optional dances unless you count Worcester,
which is over an hour drive. So we have the opposite situation here: if you
would like to contra dance without a mask, you can't. I agree this is less
bad than people who need mask-required dances not being able to access
them, but I think it's still some amount of bad, since I have talked to
people (who, again, are not crazy or callous, but dear friends who I have
danced with for many years and who took covid precautions very seriously
for most of the pandemic) who have told me that they will stop contra
dancing if they can't find unmasked dances soon.

I think masks are not very analogous to ramps. An entryway ramp doesn't
have much effect on anyone's experience of dancing except to make the dance
more inclusive. Besides maybe construction costs, I can't think of much
downside to having an entry ramp and there's plenty of upside.

On the other hand, I think many people find that masks impair their
enjoyment of dancing. This isn't true for all of us, but it's definitely
true for some of us. A better analogy might be another covid precaution:
open windows. In the dead of winter a hall with all of its windows open
might be pretty chilly. In summer it might be sweaty and humid. But it
makes respiratory virus transmission much less likely if you make the air
inside mix as much as possible with the air outside. In the right hall, I
suspect having all the windows open would be *more* effective than a mask
requirement. But most dances I've encountered post pandemic still sometimes
close their windows if the temperature or humidity would otherwise be
unpleasant and I haven't seen a lot of hubbub about it.

Anyone who agrees that those dances can reasonably close their windows
understands that minimizing transmission does not necessarily mean taking
every possible precaution. (I'm sure you can think of other precautions we
also don't take at most dances, even if they'd make it safer.) So there's
acceptable debate on what precautions strike the right balance of safety
and enjoyment for your community. For some people masks strike that
balance, for others they don't. I think both views there are pretty
reasonable. (Personally I am not sure I would go to a dance without a mask
in the near future, but I do want people to have the option to and I'm
trying to explain why I see it as basically reasonable.)

I think an additional element here is that it's hard to see that the covid
situation is going to get much better in the future. When we were waiting
for the first vaccines, there was an obvious target time for when things
might improve. We don't have anything like that now. I think things will
continue to get less risky covid-wise over time, but I expect that it will
be slow and progress won't always be obvious except in retrospect. I think
people are reasonable for asking "If we can't dance without masks now, when
can we dance without masks?" It's possible your answer to that is "No time
in the foreseeable future," but I think a lot of people won't like that
answer very much. Again, I *don't *think every dance should immediately
unmask, but I do understand why our community is split on this and I don't
think the dancers who want mask-optional dances are crazy or callous.

Perry:

> I have to question if now, this current moment, is the time to be asking
this.

Cases are spiking now, but, if history holds—and who knows, it may or may
not—they'll be declining soon and I think it's good to have conversations
in anticipation of that. Right now is around the time when BIDA decided to
restart last year and, when our dance restarted in February, Boston
wastewater levels were at a 6-month low.

Harris

On Fri, Jan 6, 2023 at 11:19 PM Julian Blechner via Organizers <
organizers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

> Question for anyone with the "you will alienate someone" or "everyone has
> a different level of risk" mindset:
> In other areas of life, do you consider someone's personal preference
> (like not wearing a mask) the same as someone's health needs (like having a
> health condition, or a family member who does)?
>
>
> I'm not asking to be mean or rude. I genuinely would love an explanation.
>
> I think there actually _is_ a way to please most people, and not just
> disregard people with medical conditions (or family with them).
> That is - making sure no area's dances are all mask-optional.
> There's a big difference between an area having _some_ mask-optional
> dances, sure, but if 

[Organizers] Re: Is it time to end COVID restrictions at most contra dances?

[Harris Lapiroff via Organizers]

I sent this email earlier, but I think maybe it didn't come through (at
least I don't see it in the sharedweight archive) because of an email issue
which, hopefully, I've resolved 爛. If not, I guess this email belongs to
the ether.

Jeff shared the BIDA survey results. It's fairly clear that a majority of
our respondents (~52%) would attend less often if we removed our mask
requirement. It's also worth a note that there's a significant number (25%)
who said they would attend more often if we removed it. I've talked to a
lot of people in that group and they're not typically anti-vax covid
deniers who can't read science and don't care about the immunocompromised.
They're largely people who would like to contra dance without masks
eventually and have decided at this point in the covid era that the trade
offs are worth it.

As far as I'm concerned people in both groups are my community—people I
want to have at my dances—and as an organizer it really stinks knowing that
any policy we choose will alienate one group or the other. I recognize that
some people value the perspective of one group or the other more—and for
the moment the pro-mask one seems to be larger out here—but I personally
don't really think either group is being particularly unreasonable. I don't
have a great solution, but I want to acknowledge that it's not an easy call.

Harris

On Tue, Jan 3, 2023 at 8:59 PM Jeff Kaufman via Organizers <
organizers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

> Joe: I think it depends what your community wants.  Here's the BIDA survey
> Don referred to:
> https://blog.bidadance.org/2022/11/covid-survey-results.html  Note that
> almost all of the respondents filled it out online before the dance, so
> it's not that we were only sampling people who had decided to come to a
> masked dance.  (I was pretty surprised: I expected to see a majority
> against masking with a minority saying it was critical for their health,
> which would have been a hard call for us as a board.)
>
> Mac: I don't think the spread of covid in China is relevant here: they
> have a much less effective vaccine, super low acquired immunity due to
> previously successful zero-covid efforts, and with the unexpected and
> unmanaged collapse of their previous policy are heading for a sharp peak
> that's beyond the capacity of the healthcare system.
>
> Jeff
>
> On Tue, Jan 3, 2023 at 8:55 PM lsturgen--- via Organizers <
> organizers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>
>> The organizers of the ten different dance series in Greenfield, MA have
>> received overwhelmingly positive support for our continuation of strict
>> protocols. Most of our dancers are grateful that they are able to safely
>> resume dancing even when so many other activities still seem too risky.
>> More people than you may think still need to protect themselves and their
>> families from Covid, and would not be able to safely dance if the rules
>> were relaxed. There are other dances in our region where masks are
>> optional, and they have their supporters, but I am grateful that our
>> protocols are in place, and most importantly, that they are working. There
>> so far has been no known Covid spread traced to any of our dances.
>> Liz Sturgen
>>
>> Sent from the all new AOL app for Android
>> 
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 3, 2023 at 6:21 PM, Joe Harrington via Organizers
>>  wrote:
>> While I'm happy to comply with any COVID policy in order to dance, and I
>> choose to wear a mask at bigger events, I question whether the contra
>> communities' strict policies are doing us much good, either in protecting
>> us medically or in getting dances going again. Consider:
>>
>> 1. Even in the most restricted states (New England, etc.), nearly
>> everyone is maskless nearly all the time in normal life, including most
>> dancers. People eat in very crowded restaurants, ride public
>> transportation, fly on airplanes, sit in airports, go shopping, work,
>> attend school, do sports, go to the gym, sing, interact with friends and
>> family members who have been out in the community maskless, etc., mostly
>> without masks.
>>
>> 2. As a result of #1, covid is spreading quite effectively in our
>> communities, even if a few groups are still masking.
>>
>> 3. As a result of #2, protocols at a dance cannot much alter community
>> spread rates, even if the dance spread rate were zero.
>>
>> But, this isn't concerning most people because:
>>
>> 4. Vaccines do keep nearly every infected person out of the hospital and
>> reduce long covid.
>>
>> 5. For those going to the hospital or suspected to be at risk, monoclonal
>> and other treatments are quite effective.
>>
>> 6. As a result, the mortality of covid-19 is now down to three times that
>> of a bad flu season, which is way down from the mass carnage of 2020.
>>
>> It is questionable what anything but masking is doing for us:
>>
>> 7. Unmasked contra dancing, even with a vaccine and negative test, does