Dear Luke,
Your biggest challenge is figuring out exactly how many guests have
done contra dancing before, but this may not be the group that you
wish to focus on! For me, the much more important folks are all of
the family members and friends who have never been to a contra dance
before. If children are at the wedding, it is also great to make sure
the dances can be done by them, as well. Welcoming these folks into
the world of dancing, and making the dances fun and fool-proof is so
rewarding when accomplished! Those who have danced before will
understand what you are trying to do, and won't expect dances that
they might normally do at a monthly dance.
We take progressing and identifying actives and inactives for
granted. However, these concepts can be a bit difficult, especially
for a group that includes many novices. And you can bet that the
novices WILL be dancing together! Another challenge may be that
there are more women, or more men present. or same sex
couples....adding another layer of complexity to improper dances that
might be called. To deal with all of these challenges, I tend to call
longways dances (Galopede; Boston Tea Party, Le Brandy, variations of
the Virginia Reel); circle mixers (you have chosen La Bastringue;
there are others with shorter swings); Sicilian Circles (especially
those that can be called without regard for gender), and other
formations, which work very, very well. An example:
Do Si Three
Formation is a line of three dancers (facing down the hall), facing
another line of three dancers (facing up the hall) in a contra-type
set (imagine contra couples, each with an extra person)
A1 (Take hands in a circle of six) Circle left
Circle right
A2 Ends of the line Do si do your opposite (only the four people
who are on the ends of each line)
Middles of the line do si do your opposite (only the two
people in the middle of the lines)
B1 Ends of the line Two hand turn your opposite ( and return home)
Middles of the line Two hand turn your opposite (and return home)
B2 In lines of three (another words, with your partners) go forward
and back
"say goodbye to these neighbors" And pass through to the
next line of three
I put this dance together especially for this type of celebration. So
many potential problems are solved! Lines of three can be any number
of men, women, or combo. Children easily understand the dance (as
long as they are not too young). Even young children, if trioed up
with adults, can be included. The progression to a new group is very,
very easy. At the ends, I remind dancers that they wait out one time
through the dance, turn around as a line, and get back in the dance.
I never have to talk about actives/inactives, but I do mention that
after each dance move, the dancers go "home", and home changes at the
ends only. I don't teach a contra swing....I encourage a two hand
swing (the experienced dancers will naturally go into a swing with
each other, the others will have a great time with the two hand
swing). The dancers have lots of surprises.....who they swing, how
they might get back to the same neighbors (from the first time
through the dance), how successful they are, and how much fun
everyone has doing the dance!
I recognize that I might be promoting dances that are much too easy
for your particular group of wedding guests. I also realize that much
of what you plan to do highly depends on what the bride and groom
wish to have happen, since it is their day! However, I also want to
give you lots of "permission" to call a simpler program if the
situation warrants it. Those of us who have literally called
hundreds of weddings/birthday parties/benefit dances/etc. have shared
thoughts about programming at conferences, dance weekends, etc., and
we all agree that simple, easily taught, gender role free, accessible
dances will add immeasurably to the joy of the occasion.
Have a great time!
warmly, Linda Leslie
On Jul 30, 2009, at 12:00 PM, callers-requ...@sharedweight.net wrote:
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Today's Topics:
1. requesting wedding program feedback (Luke Donev)
2. Re: requesting wedding program feedback (Dave Colestock)
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Message: 1
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:56:58 -0400
From: Luke Donev <luke.do...@gmail.com>
To: call...@sharedweight.net
Subject: [Callers] requesting wedding program feedback
Message-ID:
<243d1eda0907291556m46086a4qeea5c3033fb2b...@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Hello,
Some friends have asked me to call some contra dances at their
wedding.
There will be lots of dancers in the crowd, but not everyone will be
familiar with contra.
I've put together a schedule for my portion of the evening, two
contra sets
bracketing the cake cutting and some international folk dance and
Klesmer
(I'm only responsible for the contra).
I'm planning on ~ 5 minutes to find partners and teach dances, and
running
the dances for ~10 minutes. The exception being the circle mixer
after the
snowball waltz, where folks keep there last waltz parter and move
into a
circle and teach the circle mixer quickly (~2 minutes) to keep
people on the
dance floor.
The program is available as a google document at *http://
tinyurl.com/mqlwa6.
*I'd appreciate any feedback folks want to share, and would request
comments
to me off-list to avoid clogging inboxes. (I'll add know that Star
Trek was
specifically requested by the bride.)
Thanks!
--
Luke Donev
http://www.lukedonev.com
luke.do...@gmail.com
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:08:12 -0700 (PDT)
From: Dave Colestock <contradancerd...@yahoo.com>
To: Caller's discussion list <call...@sharedweight.net>
Subject: Re: [Callers] requesting wedding program feedback
Message-ID: <160877.17671...@web52607.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Hi Luke,
Just one quick observation -
You may want to allocate 10 minutes for teaching the dances (make
them simple but fun) and 5 minutes for dancing. 10 minutes of
dancing 1 dance may be a bit much for the non-contra dancers who
will be participating, since they are not used to dancing, and more
teaching time may also be required. Havent had a chance to look at
the program, but wanted to make you aware of what I have already
found in calling wedding dances myself. Unless it is all dancers,
keep it simple and short. If you do the Fan Dance you can run that
a long time. That one traditionally runs long.
Dave Colestock
www.davecolestock.com
www.frolicinthefall.freeservers.com
--- On Wed, 7/29/09, Luke Donev <luke.do...@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Luke Donev <luke.do...@gmail.com>
Subject: [Callers] requesting wedding program feedback
To: call...@sharedweight.net
Date: Wednesday, July 29, 2009, 6:56 PM
Hello,
Some friends have asked me to call some contra dances at
their wedding.
There will be lots of dancers in the crowd, but not
everyone will be
familiar with contra.
I've put together a schedule for my portion of the evening,
two contra sets
bracketing the cake cutting and some international folk
dance and Klesmer
(I'm only responsible for the contra).
I'm planning on ~ 5 minutes to find partners and teach
dances, and running
the dances for ~10 minutes. The exception being the circle
mixer after the
snowball waltz, where folks keep there last waltz parter
and move into a
circle and teach the circle mixer quickly (~2 minutes) to
keep people on the
dance floor.
The program is available as a google document at *http://
tinyurl.com/mqlwa6.
*I'd appreciate any feedback folks want to share, and would
request comments
to me off-list to avoid clogging inboxes. (I'll add know
that Star Trek was
specifically requested by the bride.)
Thanks!
--
Luke Donev
http://www.lukedonev.com
luke.do...@gmail.com
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End of Callers Digest, Vol 59, Issue 10
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