Who's in the Spotlight?

Sometimes people become contra dance callers because they like the spotlight.  They like being on a stage with a microphone and everyone looking at them.  They like telling a room full of people what to do and having those people obey.  (They certainly don't do it for the money!!)

Sometimes those callers end up overshadowing the rest of the community.  They talk so much that they distract from the band or distract from the dancers' ability to enjoy each other and the music. 

I've been thinking lately about the place of the caller in the community.  When I am walking the dancers through the dance, I am in the "spotlight" and that is appropriate.  I have just a couple of minutes to teach the dance as succinctly and clearly as I can and hopefully they listen at least enough that the calls make sense once the music begins. 

When the  music begins, I am no longer in the spotlight.  The band and the music and the other dancers are in the spotlight.  I am simply there to direct traffic the first couple of times through the dance.  If the dancers need prompts beyond that, I want them to be as minimal as possible.  Ideally, I can drop out altogether and let the magic happen. 

It's tempting to be controlling.  But truly, the caller is just one cog in the mighty community of contra dancing.  No more important, or no less important than the other elements.  The magic is made by the community, not by any individual. 

It's GOOD for you!

There is an ongoing debate among callers about calling "Chestnuts" (old traditional contra dances) and other formations of dances like proper dances, triplets, squares, etc.  In most contra dance communities that I am familiar with, these dances are not really appreciated and can cause grumblings and outright revolts among the dancers. It sometimes seems like callers are the nannies forcing cod liver oil down the throats of reluctant children (the dancers) telling them, "But it's GOOD for you!"

I agree that these old dances can be good for us.  They broaden our perspective and our skills and gets us outside the box that is modern contra dance.  They also remind us of the history and the evolution of the dance form over centuries.

In colonial America, there were no air conditioned halls, no sound systems, and people wore a lot more clothing than they do these days.  A dance as rigorous as a modern day contra would have caused these folks to pass out from heat stroke!  The dances in the old days often involved one couple doing a figure while the other couple watched, sometimes these dances were fairly balanced with the ones and the twos getting an equal amount of time to dance while the others watched, but some were quite uneven - such as "Chorus Jig" where the twos hardly participate at all.  Modern contra dancers chaff at all this "standing around."  I know that in New England, Chorus Jig is revered, but in the dance communities in the rest of the country that came to be in the 1950s and 1960s, it is not revered and can even be abhorred.

The first time I danced Chorus Jig, I was partnered with a new dancer and we were starting the dance at the bottom of the hall as 2s.  My partner kept asking, "Why aren't we getting to dance?" I know that in many communities, the 2s sneak swings, but my policy is to not put extra moves, twirls, etc at new dancers.  Perhaps I should have in this circumstance.  The dance ended about the time we got to the top.  Afterward I tried to explain to her that this was an old traditional dance from early American times.  She wasn't impressed and neither was I.

I play recorders and crumhorns in a Renaissance ensemble, Musica Vera.  We always get a good audience for our concerts and audience members comment on how they enjoy hearing the old music and instruments that they rarely get the chance to experience.  But I don't know of anyone who has gone home and thrown out all their modern recordings in exchange for recordings of early music.

I understand that this music and these instruments are obsolete for good reason!  Music and instruments have evolved.  Are our "chestnut" contra dances obsolete for good reason?  Should we be making the effort to keep them alive as Musica Vera does with Renaissance and even Medieval music?

And is it the responsibility of the caller to make the dancers happy, or to give them what's "good" for them?  I have wondered how to balance the need to expose our dancers to a wider variety of dances and the need to keep them happy and coming back for more contra dancing!


I appreciate a caller who dishes out the chestnuts in teaspoon-fulls rather than by the gallon.  Give me no more than one chestnut or alternate formation in each half of the dance.  Recently I attended a dance where there were three uneven dances and two squares called back-to-back.  There were several complaints from dancers especially about the two squares called back-to-back.  I know that callers do this because it takes longer to set up squares than it does a contra, so it saves time to do the two back-to-back, but if someone sits out the first square, getting into the second one is quite difficult so the person ends up sitting out two dances.  At this event, the two squares took over 20 minutes to teach and dance.  One man complained that he drove two hours to get to the dance and sat out most of the second half due to the two squares back-to-back.

I also look at each dance and see how much teaching is going to be involved.  I want no more than 2 dances an evening that will require in-depth teaching.  I'm looking for that perfect balance between introducing new (or old in regards to chestnuts) concepts, and letting the dancers enjoy the process they already know.

Callers need to be gentle in dishing out the chestnuts, squares, triplets and in-depth teaching, and dancers need to remember that contra dancing is a complaint-free zone.  It won't kill us to do a chestnut now and again, and we might even find the fun in them that people long ago did.  I even succeeded in dancing Chorus Jig without complaining the last time it was called in my community ;-)

Dancing with Newbies

I am grateful to have a good group of "dance angels" in our community in Gainesville FL.  These are folks who are committed to being at the dance in time for the introductory workshop and asking beginners to dance - not just one or two dances, but all night long, I've watched as our dance angels approach the newcomers and ask them to dance even the last dance of the evening.

They're not just any experienced dancers though.  We didn't simply ask "Who wants to be a dance angel?"  They were invited specifically because of how they are with beginners, and they having been willing to "get trained" in how to dance with beginners.

We started our training by talking about our own experiences when we were first dancing and what kept us coming back.  I was surprised at the large percentage of our dance angels who kept coming back "despite" the other dancers rather than "because of " the other dancers!  We put a lot of thought into what it means to be a welcoming partner to a beginner.

Early on, we read Bruce Hamilton's document "When You're Not the Caller" and we also looked at "Five Common Myths About Beginning Contra Dancers" by Greg McKenzie.

From these documents and our own experience, this is what we've learned:

The beginners learn much more from the other dancers than they do from the caller (despite what the caller may think!). The caller is saying something that sounds remarkably like "blah blah blah" to someone who is new to the terminology, even if there has been an orientation workshop.  It takes a while for the words to make sense!  But watching the other dancers and being led by your partner and your neighbor through the maze is what really helps.

How does a dance angel best do this?  With body language rather than words.  If the experienced dancer is trying to explain the moves, the dancer just hears more "blah blah blah."  But a smile and directing the neighbor's left hand into the center for a left hand star brings it all together.  The experienced dancer especially does not want to try to talk over the caller.  Set the example that "we listen when the caller is talking."  Even if you think you could do a better job than the caller at explaining it, you are doing more harm than good by teaching the new dancers to ignore the caller.

Drop the fancy stuff.  When dancing with a new-comer, forget the twirls.  You want the person to begin to feel comfortable and safe so predictable is best.  Focus on moving in time to the music and being exactly on time for every move to reinforce to the newbie that we're dancing, not just wandering aimlessly.

As an experienced dancer, you may get bored if you're not doing a hundred flourishes a dance, but this is not the case with a newcomer.  If you encounter someone who is doing remarkably well and expresses interest, you may ask permission - "Would you like to try that twirl at the end of a Ladies's Chain?" and with permission try a gentle, one turn twirl.  If they're interested in doing more, its' great incentive to say, "Next time you come, I'll be glad to try (X) move with you!"  You can be sure he or she will be back next time!

Contra dancing should be a "complaint-free zone."  Don't complain about the band or the caller or the other dancers.  "This is one of our worst callers.  Come back next time and you'll have a better experience."  or "This band is awful, but we keep asking them because we don't want to hurt their feelings."

The message this sends to a new dancers is: "I can't have fun unless the dance is perfect. and I'm going to complain about everything that isn't perfect." The new dancer realizes that she is far from perfect and that she must be ruining it for everyone! Newbies are very self-conscious that they might "mess things up."  They're used to seeing dancing as more of a performance like on "Dancing with the Stars." It's a culture shift for people to realize that contra dancing is strictly for fun and that the "messing up" can be as much fun as "getting it right!"

If you let your partner know that you are having fun, even when she wanders off in the wrong direction, you'll allow her to get a little closer to that realization that she can relax and enjoy the dance.