Hello everyone,
For those of you who have been on this list from the beginning, or have
read through the archives, you know that I posted several updates
describing my early experiences as a caller. I just looked back and
realized that the last one was in October of 2005 and I'm long past due
for an update. These e-mails tend to run long, and ramble a bit, so I
won't be offended if you don't read the whole thing.
Since that last update, plenty of things have happened that I did post
to the list: Calling at the Down East and NEFFA festivals. Writing my
first dances. Starting my own dance series. But there have been plenty
of other lessons learned and great experiences that I haven't posted.
Overall, it's been wonderful gaining experience, becoming more confident
on stage and really enjoying calling. Taking Lisa Greenleaf's Contra
Caller's course a couple of summers ago at Pinewoods was a big step for
me along that process. She gave me an assignment on Wednesday for
Thursday's class. The assignment was to figure out how to express my joy
and enthusiasm for the dance through my voice. I had been pretty
monotone in my delivery so far. That night I found myself drawn into a
dance writing session with Bob Isaacs and 4 other people that didn't end
until 3am (the result was the dance "A Slice of Pinewoods"). The next
morning in class, I was exhausted. I spent some time on my own building
my focus and drawing on my energy reserves and taught a dance in a way
that was a world different (and better!) than before. It's a lesson that
I've drawn on again and again since. Now I can relax and share with
people the fun that I'm having and don't let a hard day affect my
performance on stage. The next summer I went back to American Week as a
camper and had a blast helping Lisa teach the next class of students. It
was an eye-opening experience to take on the role of teacher as well as
student.
As most of you know, I started the Mill City Contra Dance monthly series
in May of 2006. After December of 2007, I handed that dance off to a
group of people to run. Taking on the role of organizer opened up my
awareness to more aspects of our shared activity. It inspired me to
expand the SharedWeight lists to include musicians and organizers. That
way, there was a resource for each role in producing a dance. I learned
a lot about how much work it is and how hard it can be to get the word
out about a wonderful dance experience. The dance never grew much beyond
30 or so people, which made it barely viable economically. When I handed
it off, there were many stated reasons, but the primary one was I was
burned out from trying to do it mostly on my own (with the help of one
person on publicity). The experience of calling every month was
invaluable as I was starting out as a caller. It also gave me the
opportunity to give new talent a place to gain experience. Several of
the bands that played were performing for the first time or close to it.
A few times I had new callers call a dance during the evening. I
discovered how important it was to have a good relationship with the
musicians. How important it was to make sure that they had fun, too.
Most of the bands that I've worked with have come up to me afterwards
and told me how much they've enjoyed working with me. Some of them even
ask when we can work together again. So I was able to bring some great
bands that might not normally be willing to play for the small amount of
money that I could offer but were willing to come for the experience of
working with me and in a great hall. [Boy, doesn't that make me sound
like I have a swelled head! Believe me, it's humbling to have musicians
that I admire working with me to arrange gigs.]
Other incidental lessons learned from running a dance series: learning
how to set up sound and run a sound board; the value of having a good
relationship with the owners of the hall; the politics of running a
dance series; recruiting people to help or take over a series; and the
fun of having a bunch of musicians invade my condo.
This last year has been wonderful with some firsts for me: My debut at
the Scout House in Concord, MA. Working with some top-notch bands and
musicians like Notorious, Celticladda, Lissa Schneckenburger, Amy Cann,
Bruce Rosen and many more. My debut at the Thursday Contras at the Scout
House series. And an invitation to call at the Champlain Valley Folk
Festival this summer.
So far it's been a bunch of generalities about my calling experiences.
How about a couple of recent experiences?
Last Spring, there was a fundraiser dance for the Scout House that
included a silent auction. Our own Bob Isaacs had put an item up for
auction. The winning bidder would have Bob write a dance for them with
their favorite moves. I outbid Lisa G. for the honor. After that, I
e-mailed Bob and made a counteroffer: Instead of writing the dance on
his own, we would write the dance together. Bob agreed and the next
month he made a trip to New England for a calling gig and visited me for
a day. I shared with him two fragments that I had in mind. From those
fragments, we wrote several dances, but two of them we felt were worth
calling the "auction dances" and sharing the writing credits. Thus was
born "Give the Scout a hand" and "On the Rebound". A fun and educational
experience.
I had a couple of people ask me about my session at the Down East
Festival last month that was opposite the medley. We had about 7-10
couples show up. Most beginners with some experience dancing during the
day and a very few people that knew what they were doing. So I called
very simple contras and made sure that the musicians played a moderate
to slow tempo and kept the music and phrasing clear. It was a shame,
since they had worked up some new tune sets that would have been fun,
but would have made life more difficult for the dancers. Afterwards, I
had discussions with a couple of the organizers about whether such a
session was necessary and that if it was, it shouldn't be anyones ONLY
performance.
This year at NEFFA I had the privilege of calling with Lisa Greenleaf
and Bob Isaacs for the Festival Orchestra set Friday night. Both friends
and mentors, it was fun working with them to plan the session and to
share the experience of calling a fun dance for everyone. Saturday I was
one of the callers for the Medley. Unfortunately, I didn't have all of
my language firmly in mind when it came my turn to call and flubbed the
first time through my dance. I recovered in time to give the dancers
time to recover and it went smoothly from there. Humbling and
embarrassing in front of my fellow callers and my friends on the floor.
Saturday night after the dance, I was staying with a friend who is
starting out playing piano for contras. As we were relaxing before
heading to bed, she mentioned how much she loved the tune "Vladamir's
Steamboat" and that it somebody should write a dance for it just like
the chestnuts. I asked her if she had the music available and told her
that we were going to write a dance right then. So we listened to the
tune several times and she clarified what she thought would be the best
moves to put into the dance. By 3am, I had written a new dance. On
Sunday, I found people to walk it through and it all worked out. Now I
just have to create an opportunity to call the dance with the tune and
some dancers. I think that it's the best dance I've written on my own,
but we'll find out for sure once it gets battle tested.
This summer I'm looking forward to taking Kathy Anderson's Square Dance
Caller's course again. Now that I'm more comfortable on stage, I think
that I'll have better luck with bringing squares back into my
repertoire. What a wonderful place Pinewoods is and the CDSS programs
are great. If you haven't been, you're really missing out!
Congratulations on reading to the end of this post! I applaud your
stamina for listening to me go on and on about my experiences as a
caller. I would encourage anyone to share their calling experiences with
the list. I know that I would be interested in hear about other people
and how their journey as a caller got started or is progressing.
Happy Dancing and Calling!
Chris Weiler
Goffstown, NH
