I remember my first experience dancing with Sandy Bradley when she came to Boston some time in the late 60s or early 70s and did a workshop on western style squares. I was so excited about the different style and feel of them to the New England and southern squares I was used to. After moving to Michigan we invited her several times to call our dances, which we held then in a bar on the shore of a pretty lake.
Bob
Ah, I remember dancing to her calling at the Round Lake Inn. What fun!
John B. Freeman, SFTPOCTJ
On March 20, 2023, at 12:42 PM, "Stein, Robert via Contra Callers" <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
I remember my first experience dancing with Sandy Bradley when she came to Boston some time in the late 60s or early 70s and did a workshop on western style squares. I was so excited about the different style and feel of them to the New England and southern squares I was used to. After moving to Michigan we invited her several times to call our dances, which we held then in a bar on the shore of a pretty lake.
Bob
I'll echo what Lisa says about letting the band play what they most want to
play. If they're not playing something they like, it doesn't matter how
good a match the tunes are to the dance.
There were a couple of times over the years that I asked for jigs and then
regretted it after the dance started. The two bands involved were clearly
not up for jigs, and reels would have been much better even though (I felt)
the dances were crying out for jigs.
(Probably the musicians should have said something to me rather than
agreeing to play jigs, but I imagine they wanted to give it their best shot
and I can appreciate that.)
Mark Widmer
> Lisa Sieverts <lisa(a)lisasieverts.com> wrote
>
> When in doubt, let the band play the tunes they most want to play. This is
> especially true for a less experienced band.
>
> Because really, any dance works with any tune (assuming weâre not talking
> about some weird crooked dance or tune).
>
> Lisa
> Nelson, NH
>
> Lisa Sieverts
> 603-762-0235
> lisa(a)lisasieverts.com
>
>
Hi callers,
Website help request:
As I've been ramping up my accepting gigs again post-shutdown, I'm
realizing that I've put off my "get an actual website" too long.
Any suggestions for website designers for caller pages or contra performer
pages?
I can provide photographs myself, for what that's worth.
This is one of those things where, yeah, I could trudge through it myself
with a DIY site-builder attached to a standard web host or Square, but I do
UX Design as my 40-hour-a-week job and I already have many things on my
plate, and I just really haven't found motivation to take on Another
Project. So I really just want to be able to hand someone some money and
know I'll get a good product that isn't needlessly complex.
Self-promotion perspective request:
I'm also looking for ways to appropriately do self-promotion as a caller.
I love doing series dances, and also love doing the dances for groups with
lots of new folks, too. But I also would enjoy expanding doing more special
events, and am getting more comfortable with traveling again, pandemic-wise.
There's this sort of odd condition where the A-List Well-Known Callers
don't need to advertise, but to get there, you need to either/both
advertise and/or have your summers off so you can do All The Tours and All
The Summer Camps. On top of that, New England is kind of a funny area
because we have so many weekly/monthly series dances that we don't have big
dance weekends like pretty much everywhere else in the country.
And ... I dunno, for many of us, there's an unknown of "How much
self-promotion until you become pushy / obnoxious?"
I've been calling for 11 years. Before the pandemic I was doing 30-40 gigs
a year, including some wedding/One-Night-Stand events and smattering of
special events. I've headlined at Flurry in 2018 and got positive feedback.
I known where I'm at in terms of effectively choosing and teaching dances
from simple through advanced. I solicit feedback from organizers I call
dances for. And I know that being an advocate for Larks/Robins as well as
dancer-safety has been a black mark for me in some bookers' minds.
But I still get people being like "Oh, how long have you been calling?" ---
I realize part of this is the name change from Ron to Julian, but, part of
it is definitely hesitation to like, I dunno, email organizers I don't
personally know asking about dance weekends or whatnot. Maybe there's
partly the "imposter syndrome" in there as well.
One thing I do know is that I now have no recent good video of me calling,
which I'm earmarking as part of the website project.
Perspective on self-promotion is appreciated, and perspective for anyone
who also books dances is appreciated.
In dance,
Julian Blechner
he/him
(Western Mass, USA)
I'm looking for recommendations for contras written to specifically match a
given tune, square or crooked. Obviously, there's singing squares, the
Chestnuts and some well known examples like David Kaynor's Cherokee
Shuffle. I'm looking for other examples of excellent "modern era" dances
perfectly crafted to fit an outstanding or unusual tune - such that it
surpasses the standard "pick the dance, then a suitable tune" approach to
foster dance floor joy.
I've written a few such dances but would love to augment my repertoire with
others.
Thanks,
Don
CDSS's On The Beat with Ralph Sweet, written by Ralph and edited by Nils Fredland, is a great source of both non-singing and singing squares. I'll bring my copy with me to SFQCDC for you to look through.https://cdss.force.com/commons/s/product/on-the-beat-with-ralph-swe⊠from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
-------- Original message --------From: Maia McCormick via Contra Callers <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> Date: 3/18/23 09:21 (GMT-08:00) To: Shared Weight Contra Callers <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> Subject: [Callers] Starting to call squares at contra dances After dancing to some of Lisa's Greenleaf's đ„ squares at Beantown Stomp last weekend, I'm feeling inspired to add some to my repertoire. (To be clear, I'm looking for squares-for-contra-dancers, not MWSD squares.)Any resources to recommend for someone learning to call squares?Any advice to share, techniques to look into, things you wish you'd known when starting out / wish contra callers knew about squares?Suggestions for callers to look up on YouTube (besides Lisa ofc) / fave videos?Favorite dances that I should add to my box?Thanks in advance,Maia--Maia McCormick (she/her)917.279.8194
There are some nice squares in Ted Sannella's books. Also, many of the square dance books and magazines published in the 1950's are good resources. Check out used book stores.
Here is my experience in getting started with calling squares. I decided to call the dance "Texas Star". I had danced it many times when it was called by other callers at our contra dance. So I figured many of the dancers would be familiar with it, and they probably were. However, things didn't go as well as I hoped. There were several things that I didn't realize in advance that make calling squares different from calling contras. One is that if there are multiple squares they may not be in synch all of the time. For example promenading around is a figure that can take different groups a varying amount of time to accomplish. So some squares will be home while others will still be promenading. So you may need to do something to keep those who are home busy while the other catch up.
Another stumbling block for me was the fact that you pretty much need to keep calling all the time. Squares aren't like contras where there is a pattern that gets repeated throughout the dance, so that after a few times you can stop calling and let the dancers dance and enjoy the music. There are different parts in squares, the intro, the main figure, the breaks and the finale which are different and you need to pretty much call all the way through the dance. This takes more effort and thought than calling a contra dance.
The third difficulty I encountered was the fact that the dancers tend to get off the music. Even if you have a 32 bar figure and use a 32 bar intro and break, the way that squares tend to go it is very likely that some of the squares will take a bit longer to do some of the moves and before you know it you are off the from the music. So I have taken to using a non-square intro (not 32 bars). This gets me off the music right away and I then don't have to worry about it through the rest of the dance. That is until the end of the dance. It is nice if you can have the dancers promenade, or whatever, for a last time and have them get back home just as the music comes to an end. To do that you have to get yourself back in synch with the music and know where the B part is so you can signal the band one more time and then have a finale figure that is 32 bars so it will end with the music. I haven't gotten to where I can always do this. Sometimes it works great, sometimes not so much. Many bands are willing to just end when you give them the cut-throat sign, but you need to check with them in advance.
When I called "Texas Star" that first time I ran into all of these problems. While it wasn't a disaster, it didn't go as well as I would have liked. So I thought about it and figured out some of the problems. I decided to try again with a more straight forward dance. I used "Sheehan's Reel" by Roger Whynot which I found in Ted Sannella's book "Balance and Swing". This is a nice 32 bar figure and I used a 32 bar intro (with a few more figures added to get off the music) and a 32 bar break (which I used as the finale as well). This time things went much better. Not having to think about the music I was able to concentrate on calling and watching the different sets. With more practice I'm now able to call more complicated dances, but starting out with a simple one is my advice.
Sheehan's Reel
Roger Whynot
Square dance figure; Beginner; All Active Mixer
1 - all 4 ladies to the center and back
2 - all 4 gents to the center and back
3 - all 4 ladies right hand star
4 - left hand star the other way back
5 - pass your own and do-si-do the next
6 - swing that gent
7-8 promenade around to the gent's home place
Notes
With each repeat the ladies move one place to the right.
I like to do the whole dance twice through. The first time
I have the ladies go in first and move around the set. The
second time I have the gents go in first and they move around
the set going to new partners each time and the promenade goes
to the lady's home place.
This dance will work OK with more (or less) than 4 couples.
I've done it with 5 or 6. Just more times through the music
to get everyone back home.
Good luck.
Jonathan
On 3/18/2023 11:21 AM, Maia McCormick via Contra Callers wrote:
> After dancing to some of Lisa's Greenleaf's đ„ squares at Beantown Stomp last weekend, I'm feeling inspired to add some to my repertoire. (To be clear, I'm looking for squares-for-contra-dancers, not MWSD squares.)
>
> 1. Any resources to recommend for someone learning to call squares?
> 2. Any advice to share, techniques to look into, things you wish you'd known when starting out / wish contra callers knew about squares?
> 3. Suggestions for callers to look up on YouTube (besides Lisa ofc) / fave videos?
> 4. Favorite dances that I should add to my box?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Maia
> --
> Maia McCormick (she/her)
> 917.279.8194
A brief starter:
Resources: Probably canât go wrong with Tony Parkes text Square Dance Calling: An Old Art for a New Century from the author here <http://hands4.com/Catalog/> or at the CDSS Store here <https://cdss.force.com/commons/s/product/square-dance-calling-an-old-art-foâŠ>.
The YouTube search âDare to be Square 2011â <https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dare+to+be+square+2011>can lead down a rabbit hole of a bunch of fabulous callers (e.g. Tony Parkes, Phil Jamison et al) teaching and calling a bunch of fabulous squares to a bunch of dancers, some of whom you might recognize. Originally part of a Square Dance History project which may be somewhere else now.
A place to start: For contra callers, âNew Englandâ -style squares can be a good place to start. Typically, they have an AABB structure and can be prompted as you would a contra dance. Put together an AABB intro, break and ending and there you go, Bobâs your uncle, prompting nearly as you would a contra dance. Then, thereâs the restâŠsee Tonyâs text
Discombobulation for a contra caller: In a contra dance, dancers up down down the contra sets are not usually more than a step or two away from the correct position; the entire floor looks nearly the same. In squares, dancers in different squares are not necessarily in sync, as dancers can be several steps away from âcorrect, â and different squares may be a few to several steps off from each other. This can be a bit discombobulating for the contra caller when looking out at the whole floor. (One trick â learnt from Kathy Anderson1 â is something like â..and promenade home.. when you get home, you swing your ownâ to get all the squares back together and eliminate the early birds standing in place waiting for the call â or starting again without you!)
Allemand Left,
Steve Pike
Milwaukee, WI
I would like to do a live Zoom broadcast of an upcoming dance. Can
somebody tell me how you handle issues of privacy and permission? Do you
have to get permission from everyone in the room and if so, how?
Susan [image: đ¶] [image: âș]
330-347-8155
woosterdance.com
I've been calling less than a year, so I'm still learning. One problem I
have is that, when looking at a written-out dance, I'm consistently
underestimating the difficulty for newbies. My group is about 50% newbies
every week, and it isn't large, usually about 20 dancers at peak. Last
week, I thought Al's Safeway Produce would be accessible, as it has just
allemande, swing, circle, long lines, and star. But, the star-to-star
progression was more than they could do, because the stars were poorly
synchronized and we're gender-neutral, so people didn't realize whether the
people coming at them were the right ones to dance with or not, and stars
quickly started having the wrong members and the wrong number of members.
(I should have given up after six walkthroughs, I didn't, and that's
another lesson learned.)
So, I'm looking for a better set of rules to identify an easy dance than
the set I'm currently using, which is basically: glossary moves only,
mostly connected moves, and enough recovery moves (long swings, etc.). A
recent thread generated a list of such dances, which has been useful. But,
I'm going through lists of dances people like (like the ones posted on this
list, the CDNY list that Bob Isaacs compiled, and others posted online) and
looking for ones I can call to my group, especially early in the night.
What would you add to this list of rules that, if satisfied, indicate a
dance is likely easy-peasy?
Easy-Peasy Dances Suitable for New Dancers Right Out of the Lesson...
Have only very basic moves found in most dances, or at most one more that
is simple to teach.
Have mostly connected moves.
Have at least two moves where dancers can recover from recent mistakes
(e.g., balance and swing).
Don't spin too much (at most one 16-count swing, better none).
Are improper or possibly Beckett (if the dance is quite simple).
Keep the dancers within their minor set until the progression.
Have a simple progression.
Have a progression where the neighbors are likely to be there.
Have a progression that recovers easily if messed up (e.g., followed by
recovery move).
Progress at the end of the dance.
What else to add?
Thanks,
--jh--
Joe Harrington
Organizer, Greater Orlando Contra Dance
Faculty Advisor, Contra Knights, the UCF contra dancing club
contraknights.org
FB, Ig: Contra Knights
contradancerjoe(a)gmail.com
