I mostly try to collect dances on the hoof so that I know how they feel
from the floor, but sometimes I do end up calling dances I haven't done
before, ones that I've gotten either from other callers or from written
sources. When looking at a dance in note form, how do you figure out
when it's likely to have end effects?
There's a particular becket dance I'm looking at right now, called Weeks
On The Road, by Al Olson (I just realized I've been spelling it "Olsen"
for some time. My apologies)
A1 On L diagonal, ladies chain
Across the set, 1/2 hey (wo by R)
A2 Balance and swing the neighbor you chained to
B1 Circle L 3/4
Balance the ring and CA twirl
B2 P balance and swing
If the dance starts with a neutral couple out at the end, that neutral
lady can chain in so that the complete foursome can do the dance, but if
there's no neutral couple to chain with, should the foursome dance with
a ghost, having sent that lady out to chain with nobody, or should the
lady who would normally chain out simply dance that round with her
partner as though she had just chained in from the end? If she does
that (ignore the chain on the diagonal and start the dance at the 1/2
hey), then she and her partner will wind up out at the end for the
balance and swing, which I guess is just fine. Hmm. OK, I seem to have
answered my own specific question here, but I'm still curious about the
general issue of how to tell when a dance is likely to have something
tricky at the ends.
Movement on the diagonal seems like an obvious warning sign. Another
one that I encountered a few nights ago is in Moon and Star Contra by
Don Flaherty, where a ring balance and CA twirl in the A1 leaves a cpl
alone at the ends for a very short wait while their original neighbors
star with someone else and then come back for a balance and swing. I
was noticing that everyone immediately crossed over, which is usually a
good impulse. In this case, though, they needed to just stay put and
wait for their neighbors to return. With the dance in progress, I
couldn't find a graceful way to give that information from the mic since
it was aimed at just 8 people out of the whole room, but was needed over
and over. I settled for sidling up behind occasional couples at the top
and telling them not to cross over, but there was still a lot of
confusion. So I guess another end-effect indicator would be short-term
movement out of the minor set? What else should I be watching for?
Kalia
I'm in the process of programming tomorrow's Berkeley contra and my desk
is covered wall-to-wall with a carefully-arranged layer of index cards.
On the left edge is, was, the program I had sorted out before dinner.
I came back in to take a look at it, carefully closing the door. My
husband came in to ask a question, leaving the door open. Shortly
thereafter, Sam the cat came flying through the air, skidding across the
desk and sending cards flying every which way.
I have finally, with the doors closed again, re-created something like
the program I had earlier.
This is another compelling argument for programming dances on the computer.
Kalia
Closing the door behind her
In the discussion of "How to devise a program" Kalia wrote:
"Have you found that your concept of the difficulty levels for any given dance has evolved or changed as your calling skills and style have grown
and changed over the years? I've certainly noticed a change with
English dances I had tagged as "easy" or "hard" early on in my calling
career. "
What are the specific skills one gains with calling experience?
How should/could these skills be passed along to beginning callers to expedite their development?
Michael Fuerst 802 N Broadway Urbana IL 61801 217-239-5844
Links to photos of many of my drawings and paintings are at www.ArtComesFuerst.com
Hi all:
Thanks to all of your help on my recent questions about calling,
contra dance figures, creative commons licenced works, etc. the first
full release of Contra Card, a LaTeX package / class for typesetting
dances and generating calling cards, has been released.
The (rather lacking, sorry, I got lazy) release notes can be found
here [1] along with a download of the documentation and source (see
the documentation for a full changelog and several examples of Contra
Card's use). The package will be live on CTAN (and TeXLive/MiKTeX) in
a few days. It will be available here [2] when the CTAN team get
around to updating it.
Thanks again for your help, and if you're a LaTeX user and use it for
anything interesting I'd love to hear from you. If you find an issue,
you can report it on GitHub [3]. If you're not a LaTeX user, sorry for
the rather useless post.
Thanks again,
Sam
P.S. If you'd like more examples of Contra Card's use, you can check
out my calling card library (which is slowly being digitized). It can
be found here [4] (see `dances.tex'; you'll have to compile a PDF
yourself).
[1] https://github.com/SamWhited/contracard/releases/tag/v1.0.0
[2] http://ctan.org/pkg/contracard
[3] https://github.com/SamWhited/contracard/issues
[4] https://github.com/SamWhited/contradances
--
Sam Whited
pub 4096R/EC2C9934
https://samwhited.com/contact
Much much thanks Chris, Michael, Yoyo, Bill, Linda & Greg for helping me
identify those 11 dances.... .... plus giving me come
corrections/clarifications!
Michael - interesting that you picked up Pound Cat Promenade from Cis
Hinkle as she was also my source something like four years ago at the dance
flurry. :)
Looks as though I'm going to have to take a close look at the Cabot School
Mixer and Ellen's Yarns. I'l run them through our callers practice group
here!
Much thanks!
Emily in Ottawa
As a new caller, I've received lots of advice on this topic, and I want to
make sure I've been doing it right.
I generally try to have an arc of difficulty, starting with an easy dance,
getting gradually harder, peaking around the 2nd or 3rd dance after the
break, then ending with a simple dance as a cool-down. The actual
difficulty you start and peak with is dependent on the skill level of your
local dance. I also try to have a few extra options if I find the dancers
on a particular evening are newbie-heavy or experience-heavy. In my
programs, that generally means having an extra dance in the arc, then
skipping either an easy dance early on (if there are not many newbies), or
a harder dance later on (if there are lots of newbies).
I also put all my dance cards next to each other and try to make sure that
I don't put very similar dances consecutively, and that I have a good
variety of figures throughout the evening.
More experienced callers: feel free to tell me if this strategy is good or
bad.
Cheers,
Ben
(Houston, TX)
#3 is Seven Sevens by Jim Kitch. It *is* a lovely, smooth mad robin dance!
Christa
>________________________________
>
>
>Message: 2
>Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2013 10:33:40 -0400
>From: Maia McCormick <maia.mcc(a)gmail.com>
>To: "Caller's discussion list" <callers(a)sharedweight.net>
>Subject: [Callers] More unknown dances!
>Message-ID:
> <CAHUcZGNum=YYONn57pw2qLUTcA81DxG=zcM18UwsQ2T0L9Zqxg(a)mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
>While we're at it, here are some mystery dances I've been assembling. (For
>those curious, these come mostly from Dawn Dance and a little from FRFF,
>but there's also one from the Berkeley dance that I copied down from Warren
>Blier, who has had it down in his cards as "unknown petronella dance!"...)
>Your collective wisdom is appreciated!
>
>1) ??????, becket
>A1: circle L 3x; neighbor swing
>A2: ladies* chain left diagonal; L hand star with these 4 (i.e. away from
>partner)
>B1: square through 2x
>B2: partner balance and swing
>
>*when I wrote this down, I said "ALL chain" and I don't have any idea what
>that's supposed to mean...
>
>2) ??????, imp. (caller noted that this was "one of the sexiest dances ever
>written)
>A1: women forward into wavy line and balance; women fall back, men walk
>forward, and men turn to lead a single file circle (L?)
>A2: ...circle file circle... on lady's side, partner gypsy 1 1/2
>B1: ladies start half hey by L; partner swing
>B2: circle L 3 places; neighbor swing
>
>3) ?????, becket ("super smooth mad robin dance")
>A1: circle L 3 places; swing neighbor
>A2: R/L through across; star left to new neighbors
>B1: with new neighbor, balance and box the gnat; mad robin (gents in front
>first)
>B2: gents pass left to partner gypsy; partner swing
>
>4) ?????, imp. ("cool shadow dance")
>A1: new neighbor balance and swing
>A2: ladies bull by right to allemande partner L 3/4; shadow allemande 1 1/2
>B1: in wavy lines w/ ladies facing out, balance, spin right to partner
>(like a half Rory O'Moore); partner swing
>B2: circle L 3; do-si-do neighbor 1 1/2 to the next
>
>5) ?????, imp. ("unknown petronella dance!")
>A1: petronella; partner swing
>A2: petronella; neighbor wing
>B1: down the hall; turn alone and come back
>B2: circle left all the way; balance and CA twirl
>
>
>
>
2 looks like Ramsay Chase by Joseph Pimentel. 5 is Cure For the Clap by Bob Isaacs.
Perry
Sent from my Galaxy S®III
-------- Original message --------
From: Maia McCormick <maia.mcc(a)gmail.com>
Date: 09/15/2013 10:33 AM (GMT-05:00)
To: Caller's discussion list <callers(a)sharedweight.net>
Subject: [Callers] More unknown dances!
While we're at it, here are some mystery dances I've been assembling. (For
those curious, these come mostly from Dawn Dance and a little from FRFF,
but there's also one from the Berkeley dance that I copied down from Warren
Blier, who has had it down in his cards as "unknown petronella dance!"...)
Your collective wisdom is appreciated!
1) ??????, becket
A1: circle L 3x; neighbor swing
A2: ladies* chain left diagonal; L hand star with these 4 (i.e. away from
partner)
B1: square through 2x
B2: partner balance and swing
*when I wrote this down, I said "ALL chain" and I don't have any idea what
that's supposed to mean...
2) ??????, imp. (caller noted that this was "one of the sexiest dances ever
written)
A1: women forward into wavy line and balance; women fall back, men walk
forward, and men turn to lead a single file circle (L?)
A2: ...circle file circle... on lady's side, partner gypsy 1 1/2
B1: ladies start half hey by L; partner swing
B2: circle L 3 places; neighbor swing
3) ?????, becket ("super smooth mad robin dance")
A1: circle L 3 places; swing neighbor
A2: R/L through across; star left to new neighbors
B1: with new neighbor, balance and box the gnat; mad robin (gents in front
first)
B2: gents pass left to partner gypsy; partner swing
4) ?????, imp. ("cool shadow dance")
A1: new neighbor balance and swing
A2: ladies bull by right to allemande partner L 3/4; shadow allemande 1 1/2
B1: in wavy lines w/ ladies facing out, balance, spin right to partner
(like a half Rory O'Moore); partner swing
B2: circle L 3; do-si-do neighbor 1 1/2 to the next
5) ?????, imp. ("unknown petronella dance!")
A1: petronella; partner swing
A2: petronella; neighbor wing
B1: down the hall; turn alone and come back
B2: circle left all the way; balance and CA twirl
_______________________________________________
Callers mailing list
Callers(a)sharedweight.net
http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers
While we're at it, here are some mystery dances I've been assembling. (For
those curious, these come mostly from Dawn Dance and a little from FRFF,
but there's also one from the Berkeley dance that I copied down from Warren
Blier, who has had it down in his cards as "unknown petronella dance!"...)
Your collective wisdom is appreciated!
1) ??????, becket
A1: circle L 3x; neighbor swing
A2: ladies* chain left diagonal; L hand star with these 4 (i.e. away from
partner)
B1: square through 2x
B2: partner balance and swing
*when I wrote this down, I said "ALL chain" and I don't have any idea what
that's supposed to mean...
2) ??????, imp. (caller noted that this was "one of the sexiest dances ever
written)
A1: women forward into wavy line and balance; women fall back, men walk
forward, and men turn to lead a single file circle (L?)
A2: ...circle file circle... on lady's side, partner gypsy 1 1/2
B1: ladies start half hey by L; partner swing
B2: circle L 3 places; neighbor swing
3) ?????, becket ("super smooth mad robin dance")
A1: circle L 3 places; swing neighbor
A2: R/L through across; star left to new neighbors
B1: with new neighbor, balance and box the gnat; mad robin (gents in front
first)
B2: gents pass left to partner gypsy; partner swing
4) ?????, imp. ("cool shadow dance")
A1: new neighbor balance and swing
A2: ladies bull by right to allemande partner L 3/4; shadow allemande 1 1/2
B1: in wavy lines w/ ladies facing out, balance, spin right to partner
(like a half Rory O'Moore); partner swing
B2: circle L 3; do-si-do neighbor 1 1/2 to the next
5) ?????, imp. ("unknown petronella dance!")
A1: petronella; partner swing
A2: petronella; neighbor wing
B1: down the hall; turn alone and come back
B2: circle left all the way; balance and CA twirl
Last time I checked, dance sequences were not copyrightable. The physical description of the dance sequence is copyrightable, and you couldn't just take the author's published description and put it in your own collection w/o permission. You, on the other hand, could describe the dance with a different notation.
In every instance I have seen, publishers of dance collections have gone the extra step of getting permission from the dance author to include their dance. I'm not sure any of those Creative Commons licenses map exactly to this situation.
Dan
