Contra Callers

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20 participants
4362 discussions

by gtwood＠worldpath.net

"Inactives sometimes (often?) try to fill in the quieter times with additional swings. With Chorus Jig, inactives will often swing their partner while the actives walk down the outside. Then, while actives walk down the center, inactives may swing the inactive in the next set behind them, breaking the swing just in time to cast off with the active returning back down the center. Inactive indeed! - actually not at all inactive in deed..." Thanks Rich, ya got me thinking Last year a the Down East fest (it's coming up at the end of this month!) a caller announced that the next dance would be Chorus Jig.... There was a mixture of Cheers and Groans.... the young man across from me proclaimed that he could not stand proper dances, the woman I (quickly) asked to dance, agreed with him. I inquired as to why? Because, there is too much standing around was the response. My reply; Than youve been dancing C J with the wrong people. With the aide other dancers who really enjoy Chorus Jig we showed the groaners Just what a vigorous dance it can be. Including the points youve made It is just a heck of a dance for kicking up your heels. I must add, when I started dancing the chestnuts were danced with regularity Dancers really came to appreciate them because there was a chance to rest and watch (Thanks to Pater Yarenski and the LRB!) -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web.com - Microsoft® Exchange solutions from a leading provider - http://link.mail2web.com/Business/Exchange

17 years, 2 months

Re: [Callers] need (more) help with Rory O'More

by crunchymama＠juno.com

Susan, I've replied to you offlist, but I'll reiterate for anyone else who may be passing through Memphis, Tennessee: This is the Volunteer state and we love volunteer guest callers in Memphis, and the people to contact about calling here are Joan and Ernest Kelly. Contact info may be found here on the Memphis Contra Dancers webpage: http://members.aol.com/horselovers/index.html Rich, Thank you so much for your prompt and wonderfully clear explanation of the entire sequence in A1 and of casting off proper in particular! The entire A1 seems very clear to me now; casting off proper is kind of like a same gender courtesy turn. I think I will definitely find a group of 4 to demo it, as it seems much easier to see and imitate than explain. David, Your addendum on casting off proper, that the actives will walk forward while the inactives walk backwards/turn in place, was very helpful in cementing my ability to visualize the move. And I really appreciated how you broke everything down for me. I don't anticipate problems teaching Rory O'More slides/twirls as our dancers are very familiar with the move from other dances. But your suggestion to have the 1's end the swing facing UP solved my problem of how to get the dancers to consistently end the swing w/ lady on the left. We spend every learners lesson trying to teach people that the lady should be on the right, it's pretty ingrained here. I have a new problem however! Now that I understand the casting off, these two explanations also pointed out something I'd completely overlooked in the A1- that it is 1's/active's only in the long wavy Rory O'More line! I should have noticed this, it's right there in print, but somehow I missed it. This is very bad for me, as our dance organizer is against imbalanced dances anyway, and the Rory O'More twirls are one of her favorite moves. I thought I could slip this one by, as the origin of Rory O'More, but not if she has to be inactive for more than 16 beats at a time. And I am afraid I may be castigated for calling a dance where the 2's are completely inactive for more than 32 beats! So this brings me to a new question: Can this dance work if the inactives are included in the Rory O'More line? So at the end of A1, instead of actives only, everyone would come forward into a LWL, taking hands with their partner and a neighbor or the opposite gender. Balance, balance, and twirl, repeat, then the initial call for B1 would be something like: 1's by the right whilethe 2's back out, 1st corners alle-mande Has anyone tried it this way? I think this is what I will do, if I don't end up scrapping it all together due to nervousness or time constraints. Thank you so much for your input!! Alison Murphy "If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." ~ James Madison HTTP://WWW.RONPAUL2008.COM _____________________________________________________________ Click for free info on online masters degrees and make up to $150K/ year http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2111/fc/Ioyw6iifnHYB5oYT22mMSjcgoJzv4cU…

17 years, 2 months

Rory in Memphis

by J L Korr

Alison: I happen to agree philosophically with David M., but in practical terms your observation is accurate. From the perspective of some modern urban contra dancers, Rory O'More is almost as unbalanced a dance as you can get. The 2s' only physical participation is in the cast-off and the contra corners. David offered one suggestion for addressing this concern head-on. Here's another: Sandwich it between two dances that are extra-active or extra-energetic. If you call Rory O'More immediately after an energetic dance, while everyone is huffing and puffing and catching their breath, they won't notice at first that it's so inactive. Once they do begin to realize that the 2s don't do much, you can point it out yourself and then promise that you'll make it up to them in the next dance once everyone's caught their breath. After Rory O'More, call a 3-swing dance or something else that gets everyone moving fast and furiously again. There's a place for chestnut dances even in modern urban dance settings. But it does often require extra care. Don't give up yet on calling Rory! Jeremy Korr East of Los Angeles _________________________________________________________________ Need to know the score, the latest news, or you need your Hotmail®-get your "fix". http://www.msnmobilefix.com/Default.aspx

17 years, 2 months

Re: [Callers] need (more) help with Rory O'More

by David.Millstone＠valley.net

Dear Alison, --- You wrote: This is very bad for me, as our dance organizer is against imbalanced dances anyway --- end of quote --- Immediate (and intemperate) reaction: tell your dance organizer to go soak her head! This is a classic case of the hot-shots dance gypsies-- the "overactive 10%"-- demanding the the programs meet their personal preferences, rather than that of the entire community. Next reaction: Just where does your dance organizer think these dances come from? Someone just sat down in 1985 and created a new dance form and called it contra dancing? We dance today and enjoy these dances because they have a long history behind them. Just as generations of dancers kept the dances alive for us to modify and enjoy today, so we have an obligation to keep the dances alive for future generations. (I'm up on a soapbox now, as you can tell, but there's no stopping me.) Sure, the everyone moving all the time dances are common, but keep in mind that an entire program of such dances in and of itself narrows the range of dancers who will become part of your dance community. The older dancers may not want to be moving all the time; the younger dancers (middle school, for example) may find all that constant motion confusing. Hard core dancers who've been at it for a while may have one or another physical ailment that requires them to slow down. There is NOTHING WRONG with including a dance in a program where, god forbid, some dancers stand around a little! (Okay, got that out of my system. Thanks for your patience...) More nuanced reaction: There is more to life (and to contra dancing) than dances where everyone is moving all the time. I would NOT recommend your proposed solution of having everyone in one center line-- that will just make that line unmanageable. There are plenty of modern dances-- More for Your Neighbor, for example, by Roger Diggle, comes to mind-- that have Rory O'More style balances for everyone. The usual solution is to have two long waves, one on each side of the set. You could do that and please your organizer's lust for motion. > And I am afraid I may be castigated for calling a dance where the 2's are completely inactive for more than 32 beats! I think the only way to deal with this is to face it head on, rather than to attempt to "slip it by." You might talk about how "we all enjoy dances with so-called Rory O'More balances. Here's an opportunity to dance the original, from which the figure originates." You could highlight the key supporting role that the twos play (see the final paragraph in David Smukler's article). And you might want to built into your program, later on in the evening, a more contemporary dance with the Rory O'More balances, demonstrating how this move has been revived in new contexts. I would recommend that you have folks line up in short sets (eight couples would be ideal) so that everyone gets a chance to be an active dancer. I don't know your Memphis scene, but if you have long lines, the twos are not going to be very happy. Shorter lines will let everyone experience the thrill of the ones' role. My sense is that most dancers-- "most, " but certainly not all-- will willingly try something out of the norm. If you tried to slip an entire evening of older dances by your dancers, yes, you might be "caller non grata." Even here in New England, where the chestnuts probably are called more than any other part of the country, few of us would do an entire program of older dances, unless it was specifically advertised as such, a special event featuring classic contras. And elsewhere, where the contra tradition does not have such deep roots, it may be a harder sell, but keep in mind, we're talking one dance out of an entire evening. My (more than) 2 cents David Millstone Lebanon, NH

17 years, 2 months

need help with Rory O'More

by crunchymama＠juno.com

Hi! I'm a fledgling amateur caller in Memphis TN, I've been doing this a little over a year. I just called my first dance with contra corners last week, Kathy Anderson's "Labor of Love," and it went really well, so I'm excited to be planning Rory O'More as a follow up this week. Our band is set to play a medley with the tune, and the only problem is that I don't understand the A1. I guess our group doesn't do many traditional dances, and there is no ECD here, so I'm just not able to visualize what "cast off proper" looks like. Casting off is not something we do at our dance, or at least that is called. I've tried looking it up in a few different dance glossaries, but the descriptions haven't helped me visualize it at all. Here is my source for the dance: http://www.davidsmukler.syracusecountrydancers.org/rory.htm Rory O'More Tune: same Duple proper A1 Actives cross the set, go down the outside below one neighbor Cross back as you come up the center, cast off proper and step into the center giving right hand to your partner and left to the next active person to form a wavy line of actives down the center of the set A2 Balance the wave to the right and left, give a little tug to slide face-to-face past your partner, and give right hands to the next and left to your partner Balance that new wave to the left and right, slide left past your partner again back to where you came from B1 Turn contra corners B2 Actives balance and swing, end proper A verbal description would be wonderful, but a link to video footage or animation that showed exactly what happens would be even better. I'm a visual and kinetic learner. Also the woman crosses in front of her partner, or behind? Thanks in advance for the help!! Alison Murphy "If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." ~ James Madison HTTP://WWW.RONPAUL2008.COM _____________________________________________________________ Learn to trade futures online and make extra money. Click here to learn more! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2111/fc/Ioyw6iiejQIw9wFgGqcvXA0cRfI7Noz…

17 years, 2 months

Re: [Callers] need help with Rory O'More

by David.Millstone＠valley.net

I'll just add to Rich Hart's meticulous description that during the final part of A1, the cast-off, the active couples each walk forward as the inactive pivots them around. It's a lovely dance, and can be a significant challenge for folks accustomed to the current spate of duple improper and Becket dances. Fully three quarters of the dance (A1, A2, and B1) have pieces that are not part of the contemporary norm. A1: As Rich notes, actives-- and yes, this is a dance where the terms "actives" and "inactives" are really relevant-- go straight across the set, not diagonally. Duke Miller, famed called in upstate New York and the Monadnock region of NH, used to call this as "Cross... down the outside, then cross... up the middle." In A2, it's just the active couples who form the long wave. Inactives simply watching. With the proliferation of dances these days with "Rory O'More balances," dancers are more accustomed to the balance and slide motion, but newbies will need to be reminded to face the same wall during this figure. For example, the active gent is facing the wall behind the women's line. He forms the wave, balances right and left, slides to his right, reforms the line, all still facing that same wall. Similarly for the active woman. B1 Contra corners: Again, depending on your local customs, dances may have encountered this already (Chorus Jig is the best-known classic contra with the figure, though some people encounter it in a more modern dance such as Alternating Corners.) Since you've already introduced contra corners to your regular dancers, this will go more smoothly. Finally, a key point, at the end of the active balance and swing in B2, they must finish facing UP the set, on their proper set. Most dancers today are accustomed to finishing a swing improper, and that will leave them on the incorrect side. I've seen many hot-shot dancers familiar only with modern choreography get through the dance fine until that final end of swing, and then they're on the wrong side for all else that follows. Not a pretty sight... Have fun with it. David Millstone

17 years, 2 months

dance in transition

by Gale T. Wood

To: organizers(a)sharedweight.net. CC: BCC: Subject:Dance in transition Hi Dance venue in transition Qs? Just curious as to longevity of dance series. How do you handle organizer burnout? I know an organizer who has been at it for 12 years and wishes to turn the series over to a new 'generation'. How do you generate support and bring new people in to the organization of dances? (dancers scatter when there is mention of organizing!) There is a small loyal group of dancers. The problem is no one wishes to take up the duties of organizer. This is compounded by the fact that the main organizer needs to be a resident of the town where the dance is held. (I do what I can. I organized a dance and found it was not my calling. esp. as the sole organizer, dancers want to dance not organize!) History: Dance started in 1996 In a beautiful medium size hall. First 2 years averaged 65-70 dancers In the third year there was a problem with parking at the hall. Number of dancers dropped off. Parking problem was resolved but the numbers did not rebound. Year 3 A "Flashier" dance series, 50 miles away, was created for the same wknd. This siphoned off more dancers. Over the next 8 years attendance fluctuated between 20-40. which is the sustaining level for this dance. In the past year attendance levels have dropped to 10-30 The dance is having problems hiring the "Name" talent that brings in dancers from more than an hour away (Though Randy Miller from western NH is a fan of this dance and plays for the take of the door)callers and musicians ask for guarantee sums The organizer just does not want the hassle of it anymore. There are several of us who help when we can. Some of the reasons the dance is struggling (along with the above) Very few local dancers. Lack of flashy talent (dance can not provide the pay out) It's a community dance that welcomes beginners/families At one time there was a rowdy teenage group who frequented the dance, they were very energetic, too much for some dancers. (they do not attend the dance anymore, but the stigma is still there) It's to far off the beaten path (Where is ----------- anyway?) [ I choose not to include the name of the dance without permission of the organizer] Its to long of a drive! There are better dances closer by... Is that dance still happening? It is a shame to see the demise of this dance series due to lack of interest, attrition gas prices, an aging dance community, apathy. Perhaps it is time for this 'community' dance to close it's doors. I wonder how many other smaller dances are experiencing the same problems. Here is in southern NH dance venues (new dance halls) are becoming increasingly hard to find and it would be a shame to see this one fall from use. Hope to start a dialogue and get some ideas for keeping this series viable Thanks in advance Gale Wood -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web.com - Microsoft(r) Exchange solutions from a leading provider - http://link.mail2web.com/Business/Exchange

17 years, 2 months

dance in transition

by Gale T. Wood

Oooops ment to go to Organizers.... Oh well thoughts from here!

17 years, 2 months

Naked In California

by Rickey

Hi, Do you know the dance by Nils Fredland currently called Naked in California? I have the ending as Swing your old neighbor a second time. Is this correct? The entire dance as I have it is (A1) Long Lines Forward and Back/ Swing your (new) neighbor (A2) Women allemande Right (1/2) to Partner/ Partner Allemande Left (3/4) to Shadow/ Shadow Allemande Right (1 ½) to ling wavy lines up and down the set. (B1) Balance that wave/ Slide (or twirl) Right (as in Rory OMore), into your partners arms/ Swing Partner (B2) Circle Left (3/4) / Swing your old neighbor again Thanks again for your help. Rickey Holt

17 years, 2 months

ricochet or push-back heys

by jean francis

I am looking for some dances with push-back or ricochet heys. I have only found one, by Adam Carlson: A1 N B+S; A2 Ricochet hey B1wave balance, partner swing B2 Circle 3/4 pass thru, new N DSD Heard of another called Tapsalterrie, but can't find. Also would appreciate instructions or web site for Levi Jackson Rose. Many Thanks! --------------------------------- Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage.

17 years, 2 months

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Contra Callers