24 Oct
2012
24 Oct
'12
7:06 p.m.
Okay, I need some other perspectives on this. Last year we had a new couple
move to our area, and start attending our local contra dance. They had
danced "somewhere else" for several years, and the gentleman had obviously
been involved in some of the dance organizing duties in their last location
(web site upkeep, etc).
First impressions were positive - he came to the dances for a few months and
offered some worthwhile feedback, while also actually offering to take some
action. He suggested we offer a waltz "lesson" for a few minutes before we
have the first waltz, and he offered to "teach" the waltz, anytime and every
time. So far, we have taken him up on this and it does seem to have
encouraged more people to get up and waltz, which was the point. The
emerging problem (I see..) is that he now wants to insert himself in the
"contra dance lesson" before the dance, which we ask the caller of the
evening to conduct. Several times over the last year, after I have done
"the teach," (where I don't focus on new dancers learning moves, I focus on
making them comfortable and getting them moving to music) Mr. Know It All
has told me that several people "just weren't getting it" and he has
offered
to take them into a separate room to give them "more training" so that they
"don't muck it up for everyone else." (Yes, these were his exact words).
I
have consistently declined his offers, as tactfully as I could. At our last
dance, though, he had obviously made contact with the caller before hand,
as he was taking the microphone during the teach and offering his "two cents
worth" on contra dance set management, formations, etc. I don't think
anyone died in the train wreck, but I see trouble ahead. (Didn't John
Fogerty sing a song about this.??)
My concern is that we have "given someone an inch, and now he wants to take
a mile." This guy, due to his occupation, is used to coming into an
organization and being the new sheriff in town, and I get the distinct
feeling that he sees our dance group as one that he needs to "shape up." I
am personally quite troubled by what I am seeing, but unsure of the best
course of action. (In my view, he is a "bull in a China Shop" and he has
broken quite a bit of china already...) I have seen other dance communities
where a "dancer" does the beginner teach for every one of the dances, and
when people in the community find that they need to make a change, they
don't feel that they can, politically. (How do you "fire" a volunteer??)
Have any of you had a similar experience? Any suggestions? Thanks!
24 Oct
24 Oct
10:09 p.m.
On 10/24/2012 5:06 PM, Ben wrote:
My concern is that we have "given someone an inch, and now he wants to take
a mile." This guy, due to his occupation, is used to coming into an
organization and being the new sheriff in town, and I get the distinct
feeling that he sees our dance group as one that he needs to "shape up." I
am personally quite troubled by what I am seeing, but unsure of the best
course of action. (In my view, he is a "bull in a China Shop" and he has
broken quite a bit of china already...) I have seen other dance communities
where a "dancer" does the beginner teach for every one of the dances, and
when people in the community find that they need to make a change, they
don't feel that they can, politically. (How do you "fire" a volunteer??)
Have any of you had a similar experience? Any suggestions? Thanks!
My suggestion is that before you take any other action, you make sure
the rest of your organizers agree with you.
Once you're sure they're behind you, you could tell the guy that the
beginner workshop is part of what you're paying
the caller for, and while you appreciate his interest and community
spirit in trying to help out, the organizational policy
is that the caller should do it, and he should let them do it.
(I agree that once you get a volunteer who 'owns' the beginner workshop,
it's very hard to dislodge them without
hurt feelings.)
I've only ever heard of one dance that would spirit newcomers away
during the dance itself for a workshop; that was the
Westchester English dance. (That did mean that there was 45 minutes
when the weekly dance was an advanced dance,
which was fun for the advanced dancers; the one time I called that dance
I hadn't understood what the deal was fully and
had a designed a normal incrementally-complex English program).
Here's another way of thinking about this:
You have a vision for your dance. You're not making it explicit in this
post, but I imagine it involves valuing community and
inclusiveness over dance skill.
He has some other vision, and it sounds like it prioritizes (his idea
of) dance skill over inclusiveness on any given night.
Maybe you and the other organizers could make your vision explicit. That
might help guide everybody's actions.
-- Alan
25 Oct
25 Oct
6:51 a.m.
Shared Weight also offers a discussion group specifically for
organizers and the issues they face running dances. It might be
helpful to join this group, and query about the issue below, as well
as questions about children at dances. The link to the group is:
http://www.sharedweight.net/index.php?pagestate=org_about
Good luck!
Linda
On Oct 24, 2012, at 11:09 PM, Alan Winston wrote:
On 10/24/2012 5:06 PM, Ben wrote:
My concern is that we have "given someone an inch, and now he wants
to take
a mile." This guy, due to his occupation, is used to coming into an
organization and being the new sheriff in town, and I get the
distinct
feeling that he sees our dance group as one that he needs to "shape
up." I
am personally quite troubled by what I am seeing, but unsure of the
best
course of action. (In my view, he is a "bull in a China Shop" and
he has
broken quite a bit of china already...) I have seen other dance
communities
where a "dancer" does the beginner teach for every one of the
dances, and
when people in the community find that they need to make a change,
they
don't feel that they can, politically. (How do you "fire" a
volunteer??)
Have any of you had a similar experience? Any suggestions? Thanks!
My suggestion is that before you take any other action, you make
sure the rest of your organizers agree with you.
Once you're sure they're behind you, you could tell the guy that the
beginner workshop is part of what you're paying
the caller for, and while you appreciate his interest and community
spirit in trying to help out, the organizational policy
is that the caller should do it, and he should let them do it.
(I agree that once you get a volunteer who 'owns' the beginner
workshop, it's very hard to dislodge them without
hurt feelings.)
I've only ever heard of one dance that would spirit newcomers away
during the dance itself for a workshop; that was the
Westchester English dance. (That did mean that there was 45 minutes
when the weekly dance was an advanced dance,
which was fun for the advanced dancers; the one time I called that
dance I hadn't understood what the deal was fully and
had a designed a normal incrementally-complex English program).
Here's another way of thinking about this:
You have a vision for your dance. You're not making it explicit in
this post, but I imagine it involves valuing community and
inclusiveness over dance skill.
He has some other vision, and it sounds like it prioritizes (his
idea of) dance skill over inclusiveness on any given night.
Maybe you and the other organizers could make your vision explicit.
That might help guide everybody's actions.
-- Alan
_______________________________________________
Callers mailing list
Callers(a)sharedweight.net
http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers 
10:16 a.m.
Ben,
Does your dance organization have a clearly stated written set of community
values?
Best,
Ron
On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 7:51 AM, Linda Leslie <laleslierjg(a)comcast.net>wrote;wrote:
Shared Weight also offers a discussion group
specifically for organizers
and the issues they face running dances. It might be helpful to join this
group, and query about the issue below, as well as questions about children
at dances. The link to the group is:
http://www.sharedweight.net/**index.php?pagestate=org_about<http://www.s…
Good luck!
Linda
On Oct 24, 2012, at 11:09 PM, Alan Winston wrote:
On 10/24/2012 5:06 PM, Ben wrote:
______________________________**_________________
Callers mailing list
Callers(a)sharedweight.net
http://www.sharedweight.net/**mailman/listinfo/callers<http://www.shared…
My concern is that we have "given someone an inch, and now he wants to
take
a mile." This guy, due to his occupation, is used to coming into an
organization and being the new sheriff in town, and I get the distinct
feeling that he sees our dance group as one that he needs to "shape up."
I
am personally quite troubled by what I am seeing, but unsure of the best
course of action. (In my view, he is a "bull in a China Shop" and he
has
broken quite a bit of china already...) I have seen other dance
communities
where a "dancer" does the beginner teach for every one of the dances, and
when people in the community find that they need to make a change, they
don't feel that they can, politically. (How do you "fire" a volunteer??)
Have any of you had a similar experience? Any suggestions? Thanks!
My suggestion is that before you take any other action, you make sure
the rest of
your organizers agree with you.
Once you're sure they're behind you, you could tell the guy that the
beginner workshop is part of what you're paying
the caller for, and while you appreciate his interest and community
spirit in trying to help out, the organizational policy
is that the caller should do it, and he should let them do it.
(I agree that once you get a volunteer who 'owns' the beginner workshop,
it's very hard to dislodge them without
hurt feelings.)
I've only ever heard of one dance that would spirit newcomers away during
the dance itself for a workshop; that was the
Westchester English dance. (That did mean that there was 45 minutes when
the weekly dance was an advanced dance,
which was fun for the advanced dancers; the one time I called that dance
I hadn't understood what the deal was fully and
had a designed a normal incrementally-complex English program).
Here's another way of thinking about this:
You have a vision for your dance. You're not making it explicit in this
post, but I imagine it involves valuing community and
inclusiveness over dance skill.
He has some other vision, and it sounds like it prioritizes (his idea of)
dance skill over inclusiveness on any given night.
Maybe you and the other organizers could make your vision explicit. That
might help guide everybody's actions.
-- Alan
______________________________**_________________
Callers mailing list
Callers(a)sharedweight.net
http://www.sharedweight.net/**mailman/listinfo/callers<http://www.shared…
27 Oct
27 Oct
4:26 p.m.
Well, that is a real problem, I think you should address this as soon as
possible before things get out of hand.
One of the frustrating things I sometimes experience as a caller is to
see a pair of novice dancers in a contra line that consists of other
dancers without much more experience. When the less experienced dancers
are interacting with more seasoned dancers there's no problem, and they
are improving their skills by dancing with those more experienced
dancers, which of course is how contra dancing is supposed to work. But
when you've got a lot of novice dancers dancing in the same line they
don't really provide that kind of assist, and often just confuse each
other, resulting in the painful experience (for me) of standing on the
stage and watching an entire contra line practically fall apart.
Meanwhile the line closer to me, which invariably consists of more
experienced dancers, is doing just fine. I live in southern New Mexico,
where contra dancing isn't something that most people have grown up
with, so this experience is not uncommon for me.
Now, in my opinion it's these novice dancers that we as a community must
embrace and make welcome. At the end of the evening I try to make sure
to personally thank those dancers for showing up, staying the entire
evening (instead of getting frustrated and leaving at the break), and I
encourage them to come to the next dance. Probably the main reason I
continued coming to contra dances myself when I first started was the
welcoming environment. Nobody *ever* made me feel like I was screwing
things up.
There's always that temptation in situations like this to offer
additional training for novices, sometimes as a separate group. I've had
members of our dance community suggest, for example, that we provide
separate lessons for novice guys on proper swinging technique. As
tempting as that idea may be I think it should be resisted, or the whole
welcoming spirit of contra dancing will be lost. Providing extra lessons
for people who "just aren't getting it" so they "don't muck it up
for
everyone else" may sound good in theory, but going down that path will
just drive new dancers away, similar to what has happened to square
dancing in the past few decades.
Oh, sorry, you asked for advice. Does your group have some kind of board
of directors? If so, perhaps you could make it clear to this fellow that
the board feels they owe whoever's calling the courtesy of doing the
newcomers instruction, regardless of how effective it is, and it would
be rude to interject with additional instruction. I agree with you that
considerable harm can be done to your community if this situation isn't
dealt with promptly.
Lewis Land
On 10/24/2012 6:06 PM, Ben wrote:
Okay, I need some other perspectives on this. Last
year we had a new couple
move to our area, and start attending our local contra dance. They had
danced "somewhere else" for several years, and the gentleman had obviously
been involved in some of the dance organizing duties in their last location
(web site upkeep, etc).
First impressions were positive - he came to the dances for a few months and
offered some worthwhile feedback, while also actually offering to take some
action. He suggested we offer a waltz "lesson" for a few minutes before we
have the first waltz, and he offered to "teach" the waltz, anytime and every
time. So far, we have taken him up on this and it does seem to have
encouraged more people to get up and waltz, which was the point. The
emerging problem (I see..) is that he now wants to insert himself in the
"contra dance lesson" before the dance, which we ask the caller of the
evening to conduct. Several times over the last year, after I have done
"the teach," (where I don't focus on new dancers learning moves, I focus
on
making them comfortable and getting them moving to music) Mr. Know It All
has told me that several people "just weren't getting it" and he has
offered
to take them into a separate room to give them "more training" so that they
"don't muck it up for everyone else." (Yes, these were his exact words).
I
have consistently declined his offers, as tactfully as I could. At our last
dance, though, he had obviously made contact with the caller before hand,
as he was taking the microphone during the teach and offering his "two cents
worth" on contra dance set management, formations, etc. I don't think
anyone died in the train wreck, but I see trouble ahead. (Didn't John
Fogerty sing a song about this.??)
4577
days inactive
4579
days old
contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net
4 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
-
Alan Winston -
Ben -
Lewis Land -
Linda Leslie -
Ron T Blechner