After yesterday’s post
on my experience dancing to positional calling,
Louise Siddons recommended I read
her booklet,
Dancing
the Whole Dance: Positional Calling for Contra. Overall I like
the it: it gives a good explanation of how to call positionally, with
a lot of examples handling specific situations, and a lot of advice
seemed like it would fix the confusing and frustrating situations from
the weekend. I’m very glad the book exists: if people are going to be
trying positional calling it’s key to have this kind of clear
resource.
I do still have trouble imagining someone calling this way without
being much more wordy than when using role terms. For example,
consider Chart Guthrie’s duple improper dance, “Hey in
the Barn”:
A1
(16)
Neighbor balance and swing
A2
(8)
Robins chain
(8)
Half hey
B1
(16)
Partner balance and swing
B2
(8)
Robins chain
(8)
Half hey to new neighbors
The book gives an example walkthrough of:
Take hands four; face your neighbor. Neighbor, balance and swing; end
facing across and stay connected! Notice your next neighbor—they’ll be
important later! Two of you have a right hand free. [Demonstrate the
chain if necessary.] Across the set, right-hand chain to your partner,
and take that forward momentum into half a hey, those two passing
right shoulder to start. [Demonstrate the hey if necessary; note that
for those who crossed the set in the chain, it’s the same track.] Meet
your partner on the other side: balance and swing; end facing across
and stay connected! Across the set, right-hand chain—it’s the same two
who chained before; this time it’s to your neighbor. And those two are
right back in for half a hey—and look for that next neighbor—remember
them? Meet this new neighbor: balance and swing.
Compare to how I might call this at a Larks/Robins dance:
Take hands four from the top. Neighbor, balance and swing.
[Demonstrate the chain if necessary.] Robins chain. [Demonstrate the
hey if necessary.] Robins pass right
shoulders, half a hey. On the other side of the set, with
your partner, balance and swing. Robins chain. Robins pass right,
half a hey. Out of the hey meet your new neighbor: balance and
swing.
This is still a bit on the wordy end: with more experienced dancers I
wouldn’t need many of the positional notes, but the positional example
likely also would be tightened up in that case.
Or consider Andrea Nettleton’s Becket dance, Homeward Bound:
A1
(2)
Slide left
(8)
Robins allemande right 1.5
(6)
Neighbor swing
A2
(8)
Long lines forward and back
(8)
Larks allemande left 1.5
B1
(8)
Balance the ring, Petronella
(8)
Balance the ring, Petronella
B2
(16)
Partner balance and Swing
The book gives an example walkthrough:
You’re with your partner on the side of the set. Face your neighbors
across, and with your partner—you’re holding hands—slide a
couple of steps to the right. We’re going to start the walkthrough
from here. The dance begins with a slide left into an allemande right
for two in the middle of the set. You’re connected to your partner so
only one of you has a right hand free, and as you slide left you flow
into that right-hand allemande with the one coming toward you. Turn
once and a half and swing the neighbor waiting for you on the
side. End that swing facing across; stay connected. One of you has a
left hand free; you’ll need it in a moment, but first long lines go
forward and back. Now, just two of you in the middle, allemande left
once and a half in the middle and fall back into a ring of
four. Balance the ring and Petronella spin one place to the
right. Balance again and spin to the right. With your partner, balance
and swing. End facing across, connected, ready to slide left to new
neighbors.
With Larks/Robins I’d call this as:
Take hands four and circle one place to the right; this is a Becket
dance. [Wait for chicken noises to subside.] Robins allemande
right. [beat] Go once and a half, to your neighbor; swing. Long lines
forward and back. Larks allemande left. [beat] Go once and a half, to
form a ring. Balance the ring. As in Petronella, spin or step one
place to the right. Balance again. Spin to the right. With your
partner, balance and swing. In the dance you’d slide left to new
neighbors, but let’s dance it from here.
The difference here is larger than it looks: the walkthrough can’t go
any faster than it takes to walk the dance. If you’re sufficiently
concise the dancers the dancers don’t have to stop for you to explain
things, and the walkthrough feels smooth and fluid. You can even do
it to music, as a rolling start, if you’re confident you won’t have to
stop for clarification or a demo. The role term versions rarely require the
dancers to wait and internalize instructions, while the positional
versions often do.
If I found positional calling very compelling for other reasons,
I could potentially overlook the verbosity. But picking up
the book as a big fan of gender-free role-based (Larks/Robins)
calling, however, the question I had bouncing around my head the whole
time was “how is this an improvement over Larks/Robins”? Initially I
was frustrated by the short dismissal of this approach:
While alternative role terms such as ‘larks and robins’ avoid
the problem of being discriminatory and exclusionary (and certainly
reduce the prevalence of gendered commentary on the dance floor, which
can be as alienating as anything a caller says!) they have limited
utility when no one can tell, by looking, who is what. (p4)
While I would have enjoyed a more explicit treatment, the reasons for
preferring a positional approach are there, just as background
throughout the book instead of concentrated in one section. For
example:
role-based calling teaches us to think of ourselves as individuals
interacting with people, rather than as part of a set describing a
pattern. (p7)
Whenever we use role terms, we reinforce the misconception that the
structure of a contra dance is two people, partnered, dancing with
a series of other couples. (p8)
I don’t think I see how using role terms has this effect, but even if
they did I wouldn’t see that as a bad thing. Yes, in most dances your
attention is on people physically near you as opposed to on the set as
a whole; I don’t see an issue with that?
Where I start to really disagree, though, is on the idea that there
being two distinct roles is a problem with the dance:
Flourishes are a critical element of contra dancing, and when we
eliminate gendered assumptions about them from our teaching and
calling we open this aspect of dancing up more fully to all
participants. … One way to celebrate it is to offer flourishes that
can be led by all the dancers on the floor—especially if they
enhance the flow of the dance.
In a world in which the Lark/Gent/Lead/Left-hand role is for men and
the Robin/Lady/Follow/Right-hand role is for women, then I definitely
agree that having the roles be very different is an issue. But as we
settle into a new norm in which there are still two roles but it’s
widely accepted and common for anyone to dance either role, including
switching during the dance, I don’t see a compelling reason to push
for the roles to be more similar to each other.
In fact, I would go the other way: as someone who enjoys dancing both
roles and at a typical evening ends up in both about half the time, I
dance them very differently and especially enjoy when others embrace
that asymmetry. Just as we take turns talking instead of everyone
talking simultaneously, explicitly passing the lead back and forth by
trading off roles allows the communication of much more interesting
ideas. And since dance is made up of motions instead of words,
agreement on who’s currently “talking” makes the dance a lot safer. This
trading is facilitated by the role-specific hand positions, Larks with palms up and Robins with palms
down (which is strangely absent from the “Rules versus roles”
section), where people signal to others (and remind themselves)
which role they’re dancing.
While the author does encourage swapping (p8) they also recommend
phrasing like “the dancers who just crossed the set keep moving
forward to go through the middle first”, “right-hand chain—it’s
the same two who chained before. And those two are right back in for
half a hey”, or “the same people who started the hey pull by left in
the chain”. These phrasings work poorly with swapping: they tell your
neighbors they they can rely on you to dance a single role throughout
the dance.
I do appreciate that the book is deeper than a how-to manual, getting
into how the author sees contra dancing today, and how the form could
grow and change in the future: I think it would be less coherent
without that underlying vision. Unfortunately it’s a vision of a
dance that gives up a lot of what I enjoy about the dance today
without bringing much to replace it. While, as I’ve
said a fewtimes, I see the potential for
skillful positional calling to allow callers to step around arguments
over role terms, for communities that are already using Larks/Robins I
don’t see a benefit.
Thoughts on Dancing the Whole Dance: Positional Calling for Contra
Link post
After yesterday’s post on my experience dancing to positional calling, Louise Siddons recommended I read her booklet, Dancing the Whole Dance: Positional Calling for Contra. Overall I like the it: it gives a good explanation of how to call positionally, with a lot of examples handling specific situations, and a lot of advice seemed like it would fix the confusing and frustrating situations from the weekend. I’m very glad the book exists: if people are going to be trying positional calling it’s key to have this kind of clear resource.
I do still have trouble imagining someone calling this way without being much more wordy than when using role terms. For example, consider Chart Guthrie’s duple improper dance, “Hey in the Barn”:
The book gives an example walkthrough of:
Compare to how I might call this at a Larks/Robins dance:
This is still a bit on the wordy end: with more experienced dancers I wouldn’t need many of the positional notes, but the positional example likely also would be tightened up in that case.
Or consider Andrea Nettleton’s Becket dance, Homeward Bound:
The book gives an example walkthrough:
With Larks/Robins I’d call this as:
The difference here is larger than it looks: the walkthrough can’t go any faster than it takes to walk the dance. If you’re sufficiently concise the dancers the dancers don’t have to stop for you to explain things, and the walkthrough feels smooth and fluid. You can even do it to music, as a rolling start, if you’re confident you won’t have to stop for clarification or a demo. The role term versions rarely require the dancers to wait and internalize instructions, while the positional versions often do.
If I found positional calling very compelling for other reasons, I could potentially overlook the verbosity. But picking up the book as a big fan of gender-free role-based (Larks/Robins) calling, however, the question I had bouncing around my head the whole time was “how is this an improvement over Larks/Robins”? Initially I was frustrated by the short dismissal of this approach:
While I would have enjoyed a more explicit treatment, the reasons for preferring a positional approach are there, just as background throughout the book instead of concentrated in one section. For example:
I don’t think I see how using role terms has this effect, but even if they did I wouldn’t see that as a bad thing. Yes, in most dances your attention is on people physically near you as opposed to on the set as a whole; I don’t see an issue with that?
Where I start to really disagree, though, is on the idea that there being two distinct roles is a problem with the dance:
In a world in which the Lark/Gent/Lead/Left-hand role is for men and the Robin/Lady/Follow/Right-hand role is for women, then I definitely agree that having the roles be very different is an issue. But as we settle into a new norm in which there are still two roles but it’s widely accepted and common for anyone to dance either role, including switching during the dance, I don’t see a compelling reason to push for the roles to be more similar to each other.
In fact, I would go the other way: as someone who enjoys dancing both roles and at a typical evening ends up in both about half the time, I dance them very differently and especially enjoy when others embrace that asymmetry. Just as we take turns talking instead of everyone talking simultaneously, explicitly passing the lead back and forth by trading off roles allows the communication of much more interesting ideas. And since dance is made up of motions instead of words, agreement on who’s currently “talking” makes the dance a lot safer. This trading is facilitated by the role-specific hand positions, Larks with palms up and Robins with palms down (which is strangely absent from the “Rules versus roles” section), where people signal to others (and remind themselves) which role they’re dancing.
While the author does encourage swapping (p8) they also recommend phrasing like “the dancers who just crossed the set keep moving forward to go through the middle first”, “right-hand chain—it’s the same two who chained before. And those two are right back in for half a hey”, or “the same people who started the hey pull by left in the chain”. These phrasings work poorly with swapping: they tell your neighbors they they can rely on you to dance a single role throughout the dance.
I do appreciate that the book is deeper than a how-to manual, getting into how the author sees contra dancing today, and how the form could grow and change in the future: I think it would be less coherent without that underlying vision. Unfortunately it’s a vision of a dance that gives up a lot of what I enjoy about the dance today without bringing much to replace it. While, as I’ve said a few times, I see the potential for skillful positional calling to allow callers to step around arguments over role terms, for communities that are already using Larks/Robins I don’t see a benefit.
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