Ron wrote to Greg: > ** Booking ahead is done because people want to dance with a small subset > of dancers who are their friends / the "cool, hip dancers" / etc. ** > > So I don't, as a caller, make the assumption that you present. Instead, I > believe that unless a dance specifically fosters a new-dancer-friendly, > inclusive environment, and goes out of its way to post signs / e-mails / > promote discussion with callers / etc, dancers will generally see a narrow > view of what's going on at the dance. It's up to organizers and callers, I > believe, to specifically shape the dance to a friendly environment ... > > ... if that's the dance's goal.
Thanks Ron. I think we agree entirely about our goals. Shaping the dance to a friendly environment is a goal implicit in the open, public nature of our dances and in the accessibility of the dance form to people of all skill and experience levels. As callers and leaders it is our role to facilitate that. It is true that many folks “want to dance with a small subset of dancers who are their friends / the ‘cool, hip dancers’ / etc.” It is a natural human tendency to form cliques and subgroups. But it is also true that: - People want to feel they are a part of something larger than themselves. - People enjoy sharing something they are passionate about with new friends. - The structure of the dance itself requires an empathetic response from the dancers. We are all in this dance together and if anyone fails we all fail. - Said another way: Our own personal enjoyment depends upon the success of newcomers in the hall. or Our "enjoyment-maximizing behavior" includes dancing with first-timers. - The caller is in a key position to provide leadership in this process. - There are numerous things the caller can do to make this process both easy and fun for the regulars as well as for the newcomers. It is always the caller’s fault. If the caller is not doing everything possible to make it easy and fun for regulars to partner with first-time dancers then any attribution of this problem to “selfish dancers” is nothing more than a “blame the dancers” excuse for our own poor calling. This is why I think of open, public contra dances as one of the greatest challenges for a contra dance caller. The caller needs to know how to earn and hold the attention of the hall. The instructions and calls need to be clear, precise, structured using the most effective word order, and given at precisely the time when the information is needed by the regulars so that they can confidently lead their first-timer partners. The sad fact is that most contra dance callers—including some very popular and well known callers—either do not know how to do this effectively or don’t believe that this is even their responsibility. Instead they resort to a “blame the dancers” strategy. I know this because I did it myself for more than a decade. But if the dancers perceive the process of partnering with first-timers to be a “duty” or “task” instead of one of the primary reasons they enjoy attending open, public contra dances—and make the effort to drive two hours to such a dance—this is the caller’s fault. Sorry about that. Alan wrote: > “…if we banned everybody who ever behaved selfishly from contra dances > we'd have a lot of trouble filling our dance halls.” > Thank you Alan for being specific that it is the *behavior* the caller needs to address, and not a certain “type” of dancer. When you adopt the maxim that the caller takes responsibility for everything that happens in the hall—which is the only sensible framing that offers us any hope to ”shape the dance to a friendly environment…”—then the caller will assume the support of all of the regulars in this effort and give them what they need to partner confidently with first-time dancers and to enjoy that experience. Our biggest obstacle to success in this effort is the “selfish dancer” frame in our own brain which distracts us from the goal of better calling. Yes, it is true. Some dancers behave more selfishly at times than others. But we can choose to “frame” the situation differently. We can choose to look at this as a symptom of our calling, rather than a moral weakness in some dancers. These folks might be reacting to our failure to make the process easy and fun. Instead of complaining about “selfish dancers” I think we would be better served to discuss strategies, as callers, to better integrate the hall and make it fun for everyone no matter who they are dancing with or where in the hall they are dancing. That’s the way I choose to look at it, Greg McKenzie **************** On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 5:32 AM, Alan Winston <wins...@slac.stanford.edu>wrote: > On 1/21/2013 6:27 PM, Aahz Maruch quoted me: > > Even if you did only want to dance with your friends, that is your >>> perfect right. You have complete freedom to decline any offer you >>> don't want to accept for whatever reason and then accept an offer you >>> do want to accept. You are not required to offer an explanation. >>> >>> (If you say no to Joe and then yes to Jerry and Joe's paying >>> attention, he'll get the message that you didn't want to dance with >>> him and his feelings may be hurt, but that's actually his business, >>> not yours. It would possibly be a kindness to Joe and to the >>> community to tell Joe "you twirl me too much" or "I don't like to do >>> dips" if there's some simple way he could alter his behavior that >>> would let you enjoy dancing with him, but it's not required, and just >>> saying "No, thank you" means you don't have to have a conversation and >>> can each try to find other partners. If you only ever dance with a >>> small subset of the people in the hall, other people will eventually >>> notice and have opinions - and that's still their business, not >>> yours.) >>> >> Not that I'm necessarily disagreeing with this, but how do you reconcile >> what you're writing here with the meme that people "should" dance with >> the newbies and the sidelined dancers? >> > Everyone who comes to a contra dance is trying to engage in > enjoyment-maximizing behavior. There are usually plenty of other things > they could be doing with their Saturday night, and this thing is what they > decided would be most fun. So beyond the very basic rules - you kinda > have to do the figures the caller called, and do them with whoever you come > to in line; that's the basic contract - anything else is optional. > > I personally don't want anybody dancing with the newbies who is doing it > solely out of a sense of duty, rather than because they hope to enjoy it or > because they're taking a big-picture view and realize that the activity > needs to integrate the newbies in order to survive so that they can keep > enjoying it. > > Erik Hoffman has a thing about the stages of a contra dancer, and the > mature contra dancer - in his view - has passed through the crazy > flourishes and hottest partner phase already and is now concerned with the > happiness of the room; can enjoy helping a beginner through a dance as much > as being in a hot set with a hot partner, etc. I like to think that will > happen, although I look around the Bay Area and see several people who, it > seems to me, are not mature dancers even though they've been doing it for > twenty years; guys and gals who book every dance, often while in line for > the previous dance, do dips; appear - and of course I'm not in their heads > so who knows what's actually going on - to only partner with others they'd > like to date, etc, etc. And while that annoys me, it _is_ their perfect > right. They paid their ten bucks; they can try to have the kind of dance > experience they want to have. We're not going to toss them out for being > uncommunitarian. And we need their ten bucks. (Maybe not their individual > ten bucks - we can afford to bounce somebody for being creepy - but their > collective ten bucks; if we banned everybody who ever behaved selfishly > from contra dances we'd have a lot of trouble filling our dance halls.) > > > Also, what accounts for the prevalance of the meme that one "should >> never" turn down an offer to dance? (I tend to fall into this camp and >> I'm not really sure where I got it from.) >> > I was surprised recently to encounter the "If you decline an invitation > you must sit out that dance" meme in Jane Austen, although I've forgotten > where. I don't know if that's where it's coming from, though. > > -- Alan > > > ______________________________**_________________ > Callers mailing list > call...@sharedweight.net > http://www.sharedweight.net/**mailman/listinfo/callers<http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers> >
