Contra dancing has almost entirely lost the 'proper' formation, with
gents in one line and ladies in another. For most of contra dancing's
history, however, that was the standard formation and many people,
especially callers, still think of it that way.
I was at a dance recently where the caller noticed that there were
many new dancers and that it probably wouldn't work to just wait for
people to get into position. They told all the couples to stand with
the ladies in one line and the gents in another, to take hands for
from the top, and that this was proper formation. Then they introduced
1s and 2s and had all the ones cross over. But they didn't call any
proper or assymetric dances all night! Which is fine; I think they
chose good dances for the crowd. But why introduce the terminology?
Especially when there's so many other terms we want them to be
absorbing?
Jeff
PS: I also posted this on my blog, and there are some comments there:
http://www.jefftk.com/news/2012-05-04.html
