Kat,
Nice observations.
I'll note that your symmetrical version of California Twirl into "Tug and
Turn" is almost exactly the definition of "Trade By" in club squares for
dancers who are facing out of the set. (For dancers facing in, trade by is
functionally the same as "pass through."
I like
I looked up Marian Rose’s version of Tunnelmania in her (brilliant) book “Step
Lively, 3” and she gives no attribution either. She does encourage the caller
to make sure the music always stops at the end of phrase, not randomly in the
middle…..so that the dancers inherently are listening for
Thanks Bill.
John Sweeny sent me another version of that dance:
https://squaredancehistory.org/exhibits/show/dare-to-be-square-weekend-2011/item/730
fun to see how things have been adapted.
Sue Hulsether had one she got from Carol Ormand, "Tunnelmania" which seems
to match the exponential growth
Hi Luke, This dance is similar to what you describe. Silly Threesomesyoutu.beIt's called Silly Threesoms. I dont remember where I got it.To set it up, I get couples made of an adult and child to come on the floor to make a circle. The kids all go into the middle and the adults pair up to make
Oh, and another thing, which I really should have said somewhere in that long
screed.
To me, part of the essence of country dancing, what makes it attractive to me,
and why a
community grows around it is that we all need each other to for this kind of
dancing to work.
I could have a
Since it looks like we're sharing experiences, evolutions, and thoughts on
calling terms,
I'll throw in mine, and it's going to be all over the map. Let me stipulate
that I'm a cis-het guy and my relationships since, oh, 1990 have been with
women I've met at dances.
My first country-dance
Hello all,
I've been asked back to a family dance I did at a camp last summer. When I
was there last year, one of the kids said "are we going to do Mousetrap?!",
a dance they remembered from a previous year with the prior caller.
I've tried to find it, but am having no luck. The previous caller
I see a very worrisome problem with the "Scottish Swing": It's too close to
the "Bull by the Horns" swing.
In other words, if all the dancers stay upright, everything will be fine,
but what if you get a couple of young dancers who decide that it would be
more thrilling to lean back as far as they
Hello from Halifax, NS, Canada!
I'd like to add to this convo by saying that for many years (as both a
dancer and then a caller), I've had the desire to cultivate the roles as
equal, rather than the Larks having more of a leader role.
I wasn't sure that that was an ok thing to want though, so
I'm loving reading this discussion!
Some replies:
Peg, I think it's important we take into account what Allison wrote: I
haven't seen published examination of Positional calling's effect with
people with Left/Right confusion.
Allison: It's approximately 1 of 7 people. It's not a small number.
Hi Ridge,
You are brave to bring this issue up. I empathize with your discomfort, and
appreciate your willingness to try to work around it to make the space safe and
welcoming to other dancers.
As a lesbian, I confess my initial (unthinking and I’m not proud of it)
reaction was “get over
It feels to me that one of the things that modern contra is trying to do is to
make the roles more symmetrical. I mean, we can all do the ladies/robins
right-hand chain with no problem, but when it comes to any other chain (lark RH
chain or any LH chain), even the most adept contra dancers
Thanks, Jeff. It helps to hear this from an organizer of (IMX) one of the more
avant-garde dance series.
Tony
From: Jeff Kaufman
Sent: Thursday, February 9, 2023 10:44 AM
To: Tony Parkes
Cc: Ridge Kennedy ; Shared Weight Contra Callers
Subject: Re: [Callers] Re: Gentlespoons/Ladles (from
To be clear, I’m not advocating the use of “lead/follow” anywhere but in the
preliminary session (or, if there is no session, in an experienced dancer
briefing a first-timer friend on the way in). Like it or not, our heritage
includes a few asymmetrical moves, and I think it’s more helpful to
Hi Tony,
As someone who helps organize a Larks/Robins dance, I think it's completely
fine for the caller to mention during the workshop that the Lark role
often has a bit of leading and the Robin a bit of following. It's an
accurate description, and some dancers will come in with a preference,
I agree completely with Tony, except…
I don’t think it is a good idea to use the terms “leader” and “follower”.
The only leader in the room is the caller.
For flashy moves either person can briefly lead another – e.g. twirling the end
person as you go Down the Hall in Lines of Four.
I get the impression that “men/ladies” is a common set of terms in the UK. I
believe it’s less commonly seen as acceptable here in the US, as the two words
are not parallel. In the early days of the Second Feminist Movement (mainly the
1970s) I seem to recall feminists objecting to the common
I, too, have struggled with this issue, going from men/women terminology to
gents/ladies while explaining that they are roles, not genders. I never took
to larks/robins due to the aforementioned “I hear ‘lark’ and it triggers ‘lady’
in my mind.” And that still happens. Decades of dancing with
Ridge’s point about ballroom vs. symmetrical swings is related to an issue that
I have about the trend toward de-gendered roles. I haven’t said much about this
publicly, as I hesitate to appear to be either on the “wrong” side of a
controversy or unwilling to listen and possibly change my mind.
I also have many male dancers who don’t want to do ballroom-hold swings with
other men.
I always recommend the Double Allemande Swing:
https://youtu.be/Ue0yCtjjbGs?t=107
I have offered this hold to countless men and ladies on both sides of the
Atlantic and it always works easily and
I’m not the best person to address this, as I have (as yet) very little
experience with positional calling, even as a dancer. But I don’t think anyone
is currently advocating “lefts allemande right.” Referring to the two roles as
“left” and “right” would be just another renaming, similar to
Dear All,
I have thought a lot about the nomenclature issues. I too went from ladies
to women and back to ladies, worked with armbands and bare arms, leaders
and followers, larks and robins, and have lapsed almost accidentally into
positional calling out of an abundance of trying not to say the
I don't have a cultural stance against positional calling, but I do have
the "right/left" equivalent of dyslexic (if you say turn right/left as I'm
driving, I get it wrong about 70% of the time, and I work around it by
navigating with NSEW or a map.) I was able to learn dancing by feel and by
Just a thought, but has anyone checked with the lgbtq community about what
terms they would like to have used?
Another thought, someone mentioned earlier in the thread that the
terminology issue had been discussed thoroughly some time ago and the
decision had been made to go with the birds. I
Since no one else has mentioned this, I'll just say that my entire
personal difficulty with birds comes from fairy tales and ornithology.
When we say "robin" we are mostly thinking about that bird with the
"red breast", right? Not something kinda reddish-brownish? That's the
male. In my childhood
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