Re: [Callers] Applause or Not...

As a caller I model applauding the band - I just stand there and clap. I also try the occasional "and how about this music!" over the mic, especially after they've done something good; that usually gets some results. And I usually manage to remember reintroducing the band at the break; the

Re: [Callers] Anyone seen this dance?

"Dancing Near Amy". -- Alan On 4/29/2015 5:34 PM, Erik Erhardt via Callers wrote: Or "Dancing with Amy Olmos" Erik (505)480-4462 StatAcumen.com/dance On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 6:32 PM, Michael Fuerst via Callers > wrote:

Re: [Callers] Anyone seen this dance?

"Dancing Very Close to Amy". --Alan On 4/29/2015 9:53 PM, Winston, Alan P. via Callers wrote: "Dancing Near Amy". -- Alan On 4/29/2015 5:34 PM, Erik Erhardt via Callers wrote: Or "Dancing with Amy Olmos" Erik (505)480-4462 StatAcumen.com/dance On Wed, Ap

Re: [Callers] Transgressive contras

Luke -- For option 2 (thematically linked dances in alternation) I wonder if you could just way it was a medley; not only keep calling but rather than pingponging just between pairs you could use multiple pairs. --Alan On 5/1/2015 11:37 AM, Luke Donforth via Callers wrote: I should note,

Re: [Callers] Another approach to Gender Free calling

I'm not Andrea but as someone who's appreciated the value of global calling since Chris and Brooke proselytized our West Coast English caller self improvement group about it in 2000 and who regularly uses it even in not gender free English as well as for gender free English I think I can

Re: [Callers] Another approach to Gender Free calling

An approach to subtle gender free calling is to choose choreographies where both members of the couple do the same thing. Really traditional contra dances often have this feature, as well as lots of English dances which were not composed with that in mind. Chorus Jigg is one of those

Re: [Callers] Another approach to Gender Free calling

Just clarification again. By first corners you mean the people who are standing in first corners at the time of the call? If so that's why this isn't a substitution of role names. Is this what you mean? Sent from my iPad On Jun 2, 2015, at 12:52 PM, Andrea Nettleton via Callers

Re: [Callers] Advice about "gypsy"

Apologies for putting words in your mouth. I misunderstood what you were saying. -- Alan On 10/26/2015 3:51 PM, Colin Hume via Callers wrote: On Mon, 26 Oct 2015 12:48:00 -0700, Alan Winston via Callers wrote: I didn't know morris dancers used "gypsy" rather than "gyp", as you say on the

Re: [Callers] gypsy

Good one! (I'm really liking the gyre suggestion and may try it out with English dancers this weekend.) -- Alan On 10/29/2015 2:21 PM, walter Daves via Callers wrote: Then Gypsy meltdown could be “gyre and gambol (sic) in the wabe.” This would be particularly true if the gypsy and

Re: [Callers] Gypsy Synopsis

On 10/30/2015 2:08 PM, John Sweeney via Callers wrote: Pleas could you clarify how you intend to pronounce "gyre"? I have been saying "gyre" with a hard "g" as in "give" or "gimble". But if it is related to "gyrate" then maybe people are using a soft "g" and making it sound like "jire".

Re: [Callers] Gypsy Wrap-Up

Very nicely done! -- Alan On 11/2/2015 3:31 PM, Amy Wimmer via Callers wrote: Hi All, I finally composed a response to the original complainant. Here it is, followed by an almost instant reply from him (yes, it is a male): Hello Mr.__, Thank you for letting us know about your

Re: [Callers] Fwd: Use of the word "gypsy" in various folk dances - Response from Voice of Roma

Thank you for doing this, Martha. -- Alan On 11/3/2015 7:43 PM, Martha Wild via Callers wrote: All, I have received the following response from a representative from the Voice of Roma. This seems to be a pretty definitive response to whether the term is insulting or not to the Roma people.

Re: [Callers] Identifying Dances (Was "Anyone know this dance?"]

On 11/24/2015 3:47 PM, Aahz Maruch via Callers wrote: On Tue, Nov 24, 2015, Jeremy Gmail via Callers wrote: So what can we do? We could all ask on [Callers] but we'd soon get fed up with the forum being taken over. I wondered about a "please identify this dance" (sub-)forum, similar to the

Re: [Callers] Unsubscribe

I don't have anything administratively to do with the sharedweight lists, but I do run other lists, so one of my pet peeves is people sending their administrative requests to the whole list, which may or may not do anything and just makes work for the administrators. (Some software catches

Re: [Callers] Choreography and Copyright

On 1/22/2016 7:02 PM, Martha Wild via Callers wrote: Call a dance written by someone else: Pretty much always, is my guess. If I note down a dance at a festival and I like it, I call it, and try to get all attributions for announcement. Maybe if there was a caller who stipulate that no one

Re: [Callers] ONS with a *tiny* inexperienced crowd?

On 1/26/2016 7:53 AM, Don Veino via Callers wrote: I've agreed to an extremely last minute "Hoe Down" gig this Saturday for a local church, where I'm promised 25-75 people of mixed ages. No dance experience at all. I've reset their expectation to a family/barn dance - no cowboy outfits on

Re: [Callers] here it is - sorry

On 4/4/2016 9:10 AM, Darwin Gregory via Callers wrote: While I am relatively new to contra, and just called my first dance this weekend, The Baby Rose... I'll have never considered gypsy a term related to a race of people, nor did I know it was applied today to a group of people called

Re: [Callers] here it is - sorry

Whoops, didn't see the "please move on" request. Please disregard. -- Alan On 4/4/2016 3:13 PM, Winston, Alan P. via Callers wrote: On 4/4/2016 9:10 AM, Darwin Gregory via Callers wrote: While I am relatively new to contra, and just called my first dance this weekend, The

Re: [Callers] tips for teaching dancing the "other" role?

On 7/5/2016 11:32 AM, Susan Pleck via Callers wrote: Hi folks, I'm to lead a workshop/extended intro lesson at a local dance this Saturday on gender-free dancing/dancing the "other" role/switching roles. Not having done this before, I'd appreciate any thoughts or advice about what this

Re: [Callers] Box circulate dances

On 7/18/2016 4:16 PM, Aahz via Callers wrote: On Mon, Jul 18, 2016, Maia McCormick via Callers wrote: Chinese New Year by Chris Page || improper (adv'd) Starts in long waves, gents face out, Ns by R A1: bal. wave & box circulate (2x) (LX G loop; GX L loop) A2: bal. wave & box circulate (LX G

Re: [Callers] Yet another "Anyone seen this dance?"

The Barraclough and Goldman experiences with the dance already have belied my suspicion, but what I was thinking was that the extremely common use of "circle left 3/4 and swing on the side" was going to interfere with "Circle left all the way and swing on the side", and that we might see a

Re: [Callers] Fewer than 6 dancers - Ideas?

Jacqui -- I feel your pain. (I spent a couple of years trying to run an English Ceilidh series - bouncy sweaty dances with swings - and while we once had 42 people we more typically had 6 or fewer. I collected and made up a bunch of five person dances, but most of them aren't very contra-y.

Re: [Callers] Ralph Page Style

On 10/17/2016 3:26 PM, Neal Schlein via Callers wrote: Thanks for pointing that out! I was aware of the fact but didn't think of it here. The older New England swings also would have been 2-hand swings, which lend themselves to a different choreographic flow--for example, swinging and

[Callers] Thursday Night Flash! was: Re: suggestions for dances

My mail client isn't showing the fraction in A1 that shows how far the men turn. Thinking it through, I guess it's either 1.25 (gents are closest to partner with their backs to partner, so have to turn around) or 1.75 (gents are closest to neighbor but facing partner; gents start the

Re: [Callers] Holiday contras - BEG/EASY

Claire -- In my experience, choosing dances because their titles fit a particular theme isn't the best way to make programs. For Christmas holiday dances I'm used to bands slipping familiar holiday tunes into their regular sets. (Jingle Bells fits in nicely as a bouncy tune. Several carols

Re: [Callers] What to do with a really bad new dancer?

I've seen some responses on the organizers list and here, and I've thought about the persistent rock-in-the-stream dancer we had in Berkeley (who did, eventually, start modifying the dances so he could get where he needed on time, and who indeed various women would ask to dance or he'd be

Re: [Callers] Calling at Free Folk Festival

On 5/31/2017 6:41 PM, Claire Takemori via Callers wrote: Hi everyone. I’m looking for advice. I’m calling a FFF next Sat and live in SF Bay Area, where the average person has never heard of contra dance. I got advice from Alan Winston, who called the contra dance a couple years ago when it

Re: [Callers] Sir Roger De Coverly

https://people.well.com/user/cwj/bangersandmash/SRdC.html http://www.brassworksband.com/recordings.html Depending on how much you care about the name tune, the dance works to a wide assortment of duple or triple meter tunes, and a Virginia Reel medley would do the job. -- Alan On

Re: [Callers] Circles, Crazy Circles

On 7/10/2018 9:03 AM, John Sweeney via Callers wrote: I agree with Colin that it is much more satisfying if you start the move with your arm around the person you just swung and go forward together. I see that Larry specified that the woman is drawn to the men's side, and for that

Re: [Callers] Dance logs and record-keeping

Oddly enough, I was just in Seattle at the end of February and had a conversation about this with Lindsey Dono, who told me to my surprise that dancers at Lake City, at least, will complain about getting the same dance two weeks in a row, and said that there *was* a log kept of dances called

Re: [Callers] Cinco deMayo dances

Is this limited to contra dances? I've got: May the Fourth Be With You (Jim Saxe) Brimmer & May Reel (Dan Pearl) First Turn in May (Circle mixer by Tom Hinds) Lucky Five (Circle Mixer by Bob Dalsemer) (Also an Early American "First of May" and Dudley Laufman's 48-bar "Sweets of May", which

Re: [Callers] Gate vs Hand Cast

"Hand cast" is definitely a thing I've heard, but only in the context of a couple down the middle and back and cast off (which was not at all unknown in the 80s when I started contra dancing (though more a feature of chestnut contras) , but hasn't turned up too much since. In contra, the

Re: [Callers] "Second" ONS

In general, I'd say to prepare mostly the same easiness-level of dances, mostly different dances, a repeat of whatever the most popular dance was, and have a couple slightly more challenging ones - with progression, etc - up your sleeve but without any emotional investment in actually using

Re: [Callers] super-simple square for rollaway practice was: "Second" ONS

Allison wrote (responding to Jim): > >Notes on the roll away dance say "succeeded at walkthrough, weren't > going to make it through the dance."  If you could tell, did the > confusion seem to have to do with figuring out who was in what role, > or was it mostly about something else, such as

Re: [Callers] Colds

Bob -- I've called an entire English dance so debilitated by a sinus infection that I had to lean against a wall the whole time.  It's not ideal. Cancel if you're contagious.  Cancel if you're enough under the weather that your performance will suffer.  Cancel if it's not safe for you to get

[Callers] Does this dance exist already?

I don't recall seeing the dip-and-dive-across-the-set figure before (choreographically equivalent to right and through), came up with this, called it tonight and people seemed to have fun.  I don't think it registers as too  gimmicky for hot contra dancers because they get the twirls to face

Re: [Callers] Barn dances for teens

I've gotten good mileage out of "Up the Sides and Down the Middle" (which has its own tune that changes meters in the B part, but works just fine to bouncy jigs, polkas, etc.) UP THE SIDES AND DOWN THE MIDDLE (CDM, own tune or any bright jig) Long set for four to six couples. (Seven is doable

Re: [Callers] How would you teach this? What would you call it?

Just getting to my email now. I have an ECD with a similar move - star into couples chase out, swap leads, come back in; in my dance, they go around each other, so it's clearly a poussette variation. I tried calling it "dolphin poussette" but that really doesn't speak to people; another

Re: [Callers] Looking for "fun" dances

On 5/15/2019 5:51 AM, Charles Abell via Callers wrote: I'm sure there is already a thread on this somewhere, but I'm wondering what are your favorite dances for those in the 4-10 year old range. Specifically, dances that are not mixers since many younger dancers prefer to stay with a

Re: [Callers] Coconut Cream Puff vs Pie + choreographer?

My understanding is that Lynn adapted Ron Beeson's dance, Apple Pie Quadrille, by changing B2 into a can't-fail circle progression from a "Devil's Backbone" progression. I'm going to guess that Nils called it at a dance and somebody misattributed the dance to him and got the name wrong.

Re: [Callers] Brain Dead - Need Suggestions

I'd think if you could get them to do "Lucky Seven" and count the progression aloud (1 .. 2.. 3 ..) so that they're hearing 2 beat or 4 beat chunks on the pull by, you'd be exceeding the request. -- Alan From: Callers on behalf of Linda S. Mrosko via Callers

Re: [Callers] Family Dances

Traffic Jam. (I haven't called this, but here's notation shared by other people on mailing lists. ) TRAFFIC JAM Random singletons - no partner (via Barb Kirchner) A1: clap 3x, stamp 3x, walk 4 steps repeat (it's fun to face people when you do clap/stamp, then walk off and face

Re: [Callers] Including Mobility Challenged Dancers

You can do the hand jive standing or seated and you don't need seats in any particular configuration, and you also don't need partners. I organized the dance program for the World Science Fiction Convention last year and among Susan's program items was a hand jive session, which did get some

Re: [Callers] Public Dance, Ideas Wanted

Around where I am, anyway, parents of teeny children have little sense and assume everything is perfectly fine for their little children to participate.  (I mean, like, they'll send in their 4 year olds while staying back on the sidelines and watching, sometimes with a baby in a stroller.)  So

[Callers] What can you do as a caller to help people on the floor who clearly have no sense of the flow of a dance?

What do you as a caller to help people on the floor who clearly have no sense of the flow of the dance? (Sometimes you see people who will absolutely fight the flow of the dance to go the wrong way / do the wrong thing; there are others who are just sufficiently tentative about every figure

Re: [Callers] What can you do.....?

Tom -- It's possible, if not likely, that what I'm calling "seems to have no sense of flow" has different causes for different people at different times. I've definitely seen it happening at gents/ladies dances as well as at larks/robins dances as well as at English dances. When I lead a

Re: [Callers] What can you do.....?

body before it will occur to me to pay attention to that, even when dancing! Becky On Sep 29, 2019, at 3:37 PM, Winston, Alan P. via Callers mailto:callers@lists.sharedweight.net>> wrote: Tom -- It's possible, if not likely, that what I'm calling "seems to have no sense of flow"