Hi Cara! There is definitely a history! Many dancers don't like lead/follow as terms because they either don't think contra has a lead/follow dynamic or they don't want to encourage lead/follow dancing.
Some dance series, primarily ones with younger dancers, do use those terms, but there are enough dancers opposed to them that I don't see them as a potential community-wide replacement the way rubies/jets could be. Jeff On Jan 18, 2017 7:53 PM, "Cara Sawyer via Callers" < callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote: > Hello all, > I am quite new to the list and am only now embarking on learning to call, > but I have to ask a question I have had for awhile as a dancer that I now > need to understand as a caller: is there something wrong with Lead and > Follow? > > When I first encountered the creative alternatives in contra, I wasn't > sure what to think. I came to contra from a swing background and that is > what is used in workshops (and sort or in general now), since many people > switch in that dance style as well. > > Besides being an obvious description for the dancer role, it had the same > 1/2 syllables rhythm as Gent/Lady. And it seems to me to have the advantage > of being intuitively linked to how the dancer is thinking about > his/her/their role. > > Just curious if there is a history, I'm sure I am not the first person to > think of this. > > Thanks! > Cara > > Sent to you using thumbs. > > On Jan 18, 2017, at 10:40, Angela DeCarlis via Callers < > callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote: > > When I called at PICD (the Portland ME dance), I really enjoyed using Jets > and Rubies. One silly thing I enjoyed any the terms during the beginners' > lesson was coaching palm direction based on the terms: "Jets' palms face > up, towards the sky; Rubies' palms face down, towards the ground." > > And yes, I realize that *both* are gemstones and that some feel strongly > that we should steer away from the "airplane" association, but it did make > for easy teaching. > > Jets and Rubies is also more forgiving for callers new to gender-neutral > language, since the terms are so linguistically comparable to Gents and > Ladies. > > That all said, I also like Larks and Ravens fine. > > Happy calling, everyone! > > Angela > > On Jan 18, 2017 11:30 AM, "Aahz via Callers" <callers@lists.sharedweight. > net> wrote: > >> Not that Portland, the other Portland. ;-) >> >> http://bangordailynews.com/2017/01/09/news/portland/contra- >> dancing-takes-a-gender-neutral-spin-in-portland/ >> >> I personally would prefer to settle on "larks" and "ravens" because that >> seems to have more traction -- but it doesn't matter as long as we get >> away from "bands" and "bares". >> -- >> Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 >> http://rule6.info/ >> <*> <*> <*> >> Help a hearing-impaired person: http://rule6.info/hearing.html >> _______________________________________________ >> Callers mailing list >> Callers@lists.sharedweight.net >> http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/callers-sharedweight.net >> > _______________________________________________ > Callers mailing list > Callers@lists.sharedweight.net > http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/callers-sharedweight.net > > > _______________________________________________ > Callers mailing list > Callers@lists.sharedweight.net > http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/callers-sharedweight.net > >