Chrissy hits the nail on the head of why there are numerous callers (her, myself, Will Loving, to name a few) who vehemently oppose the inroads "lead/follow" terminology is making within contradance. Thanks to mentors who emphasized that "gent" and "lady" simply described dance roles, distancing the terms from gender, i for the most part rely on "gent/lady". However, as some within the contra meta-community become disenchanted with gendered role-terminology systems, a viable alternative is needed. Given the awkwardness of "bands/bare-arms" in some situations and (to more than a few of us) the misleading nature of "lead/follow", we hope to energize the collective Mind of the community to brainstorm new possibilities. As Will mentioned in his initial post, there are four criteria he and i came up with which we believe a new terminology system must meet in order to catch on (i've modified them slightly) :
1. Matches the one/two syllable form of gents/ladies, lead/follow, etc. 2. Sound distinctly different for easy recognition (this nixes "b/b-a") 3. Accurately describe the experience and/or geometry of contra dance (eg, referencing LHP/RHP; we submit that "l/f" does not accurately describe the experience of contra) 4. Is gender and connotatively neutral without a lot of referential baggage I can appreciate people's desire to defend their preferred systems, but the point of starting this thread was to generate new possibilities.
