Triplets ... rarely get done these days. And the wild cheering is a running gag going back decades, the theory being the dancers have memorized which number is which. They were originally created by Ted Sannella in 1968, from memories of Fandango. It was a way for him to make triple-minor choreography or inactive choreography, yet let everyone have a chance at being ones. (And Fandango is just one of many traditional triple minors reconstructed into a 3-couple set so the inactives wouldn't fall asleep/would get to dance the cool part.)
(See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/trad-dance-callers/message/4078 for the fuller story, but you'll need to be a member of trad-dance-callers, and yahoo groups in order to read this) I like triplets, and yes, they're great for those six-dancer situations. But I personally find they take the same dance-program space as squares. They're both small-set dances where you're dancing a particular pattern with only a small number of people. They also have a higher teach/dance ratio than contras, as triplets are traditionally run nine times through. For anyone interested in a few triplets, I recommend starting with Ted's Triplet #3 (dip and dive), and a simple contra corners triplet. There's several of those. If you're interested in going beyond, there's a number that I like: David's Triplet #4 (David Smukler, a real easy triplet) Ted's Triplet #2 (Basket swings) Ted's Triplet #24 (Waves. A1 will be unfamiliar to most contra dancers) Housewarming (Jacob Bloom, mirror circles, right-hand-high, left-hand-low. I replace the final forward and back with a do-si-do) Proofreader's Triplet (Al Olson, hey for three) Beneficial Triplet (Al Olson. A variant of a contra dance that was a variant of a 3-couple ECD dance) Star Chase (Al Olson, use the variant with partner swing. Interesting pattern for the ones. Very hard to teach without using a demo) Triplet to Eugene (Mary Devlin, mirror allemandes and contra corners) TLC Triplet (Chris Page, three ladies chain figure) Cinammon Cruller (Bob Isaacs, hey for six) And there's about a dozen more that I haven't called yet that I really want to. Since contra dance is based on two and four person figures, there's not a lot that fits well for all six, but what there is can be neat. I once did a whole workshop on them, and got favorable feedback from the dancers. -Chris Page San Diego On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 12:34 PM, Kalia Kliban <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi all > > I just encountered a triplet in the wild for the first time (they don't get > called much around here, and I've been out of the dancing loop for a bit) at > our Santa Rosa (CA) contra last Friday. It was Ted's Triplet #24. > Apparently wild cheering is traditional when one of Ted Triplets is > announced? > > As an English dancer, I found it to be a pretty simple and straightforward > dance and a nice break from loads o' longways, but the contra dancers all > around me were falling to bits, apparently completely flummoxed by the small > sets. > > How often do triplets show up in programs where you dance? How often, and > in what sorts of settings, do you call them? What do you do differently to > teach them, to help contra dancers with the unusual formation? They seem > like useful dances, both for a change of pace and for those dreaded dinky > crowds, but as I mentioned, this was my first time encountering one in years > of dancing. Are they more common on the East Coast? > > Kalia > _______________________________________________ > Callers mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers
