In discussions among dance callers and organizers, online and off, a variety of
topics come up from time to time that might be grouped under the heading of
empowering people (especially new dancers) to say "No". Some examples:
* Assuring new dancers that it's ok to decline an invitation
to dance as someone's partner, and that doing so doesn't
oblige them to give a reason nor to sit out the dance.
* Telling people that if they're not comfortable making eye
contact, they can look at, for example, the forehead or
ear of the person with whom they're swinging as a way to
avoid getting dizzy from looking at the walls.
* Teaching how to decline a partner's or neighbor's attempt
to lead a twirl or other embellishment.
Without downplaying the importance of empowering people to say "No", I'd like
to know if anyone has ideas about empowering people to say "Yes" (while still
empowering them to say "No"). For example:
* While I agree that nobody should feel compelled to dance
with any particular partner, I think it's nice to be in a
community where most dancers are comfortable dancing with
a variety of partners and where a single person arriving
with no regular partner of group of friends doesn't face
the prospect of being an involuntary wallflower for most
(or all) of the evening.
* While I agree that nobody should feel required to make
eye contact if they find it uncomfortable, I rather like
dancing in a community where people generally do enjoy
making more eye contact on the dance floor than they do
with random passing strangers on the street. I wouldn't
want to emphasize teaching avoidance of eye contact to
point of developing into a community where everyone
habitually looks at or past their partner's ear. (And
no, that doesn't mean I think it's ok for dancer A to
gaze at dancer B as if he meant to fall through her eyes
into her very soul while dancer B very obviously is not
responding in kind. [Stereotyped gendered pronouns
intentional, but the same point applies with any other
pair of pronouns.])
* I've sometimes heard the action borrowed from "Petronella"
described with words such as "move or spin one place to
the right." To me that seems to suggest that just walking
to the next spot around the ring is the standard version
of the figure and that spinning is an embellishment. I'd
rather suggest that the spin is standard and the leaving
it out is an adaptation for those with limited mobility,
energy, or balance.
Perhaps some of you can think of other examples.
When someone makes two remarks--call them P and Q--that seem to suggest
different courses of action, it's tempting to read them as being connected by a
"but" ("P but Q") and to assume that the person means to imply that whichever
remark came second (that is, the one after the explicit or implicit "but")
thoroughly overrides the one that came first. That's not my intention here.
I'd really like to get some conversation going about helping people feel
empowered to say "Yes" and ALSO helping them feel empowered to say "No". As an
illustration that those need not be conflicting goals, let me mention that IMO
one of the things that can most empower someone to say "Yes" is confidence that
they'll be respected when they want to say "No".
Thoughts, anyone?
--Jim
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