Not necessarily. I called a contra dance in the ceilidh tent at a UK folk festival with few if any experienced contra dancers. I made a list of very basic figures and chose only dances with those figures in. I think I used either only right and left throughs, or only ladies chains, but not both (can't remember which sorry!) No work outside minor set, I preferred eight bar figures to four bar figures (over and back etc). Lots of line of four lead down sort of dances. Lots of the easier chestnuts.
And I delivered the explanation of how to line up, how to know if you're a one or two, how the progression works etc, before *every* *single* *dance*. It worked and the dancers had a great time. Hope it goes well! Jen On 24 July 2018 at 15:53, Mac Mckeever via Callers < callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote: > I stay away from contras unless you have a good number of experienced > dancers to hold things together. There are lots of dances that are more > self correcting and don't have the complexity that progression creates. > Virginia Reel works good with beginners > > Mac McKeever > > On Tuesday, July 24, 2018, 9:48:59 AM CDT, Lorraine Sutton via Callers < > callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote: > > > Hello All, > > I am calling a 2 hour Intro to Contra dance ....at an Ontario Canada > Festival. ( more a music focus than a dance focus, at this festival) > > I would appreciate hearing from you as to contra dances ( lws proper > & Improper) that you have found successful with very novice dancers and why > you think those dances work for beginners.(I love Larry Jennings definition > of easy vs complicated ) > > I do plan on doing some non progressive lws as well as a both a circle and > a Sicilian circle in the program mix , to get the concept of progression. > > Thanks so much. > > Lorraine Sutton ( lorrainesutt...@gmail.com ) > > > ... > > _______________________________________________ > List Name: Callers mailing list > List Address: Callers@lists.sharedweight.net > Archives: https://www.mail-archive.com/callers@lists.sharedweight.net/ > > _______________________________________________ > List Name: Callers mailing list > List Address: Callers@lists.sharedweight.net > Archives: https://www.mail-archive.com/callers@lists.sharedweight.net/ > >
_______________________________________________ List Name: Callers mailing list List Address: Callers@lists.sharedweight.net Archives: https://www.mail-archive.com/callers@lists.sharedweight.net/