HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: charleen@ADS.COM (Charleen Bunjiovianna)
Newsgroups: rec.folk-dancing
Subject: Re: Dancing Do's and Don'ts
Keywords: not-so-beginners, encouragement, fun, WSD, Challenge
Date: 8 Apr 92 16:52:36 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: The Original Estrogen-Crazed Lust Bunnies

In article <1992Apr8.122616.11844@cbnewsl.cb.att.com> htr@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (helena.t.robinson) writes:
>One line I use frequently - especially with newer dancers - after a "difficult" 
>tip (WSD) is, "You know you're in a good square when you're having fun making 
>mistakes."  And yes, this applies no matter what the level/program/dance form 
>(adjust as necessary - ;-] ).

Warning:  the following is definitely tangential and doesn't have much
to do with beginners.

Helena's comment reminded me that it isn't always obvious when someone
is having fun, particularly at Challenge.  Experienced dancers know
this and recognize that a frown on a fellow dancer is probably a sign
of intense concentration, but more and more I run into relatively new
C-1 dancers who think that if you're not smiling the whole time,
something must be wrong.  One night when I was having to concentrate
more than usual, I heard "Are we having fun yet?" from four different
dancers, all of whom probably thought they were being witty or original.

And intense concentration doesn't mean you're taking the activity too
seriously, either...  I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting
to get it right, as long as you don't make a bloody nuisance out of yourself.
(Apropos too seriously:  Pete Herman likes to tell the story of the t-shirt
he saw at a convention:  "Square Dancing Isn't a Matter of Life or Death.
It's Much More Important Than That." :-)

Helena says we should remember that we were all beginners once.  I say
that we still are; the nature of the activity is such so that you can't
say "I've learned everything I need to know to dance perfectly."  (With
the possible exception of Stewart. :-)  And going on to a new program
level, if one chooses to do so, is a humbling experience.  Possibly the
people who tend to be impatient with beginners have stagnated at their
level and have forgotten what it's like to be the new kid on the block.

Charleen



--
Newsgroups: rec.folk-dancing
From: ted@welchgate.welch.jhu.edu (Ted Ying)
Subject: Re: Dancing Do's and Don'ts
Organization: Johns Hopkins Univ. Welch Medical Library
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 16:53:40 GMT

noe@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Roger Noe) writes:

>ARLENJ@MAINE.MAINE.EDU writes:
>
>>Newcomers need patience.  If they are doing something wrong, I
>>usually tell them firmly what they need to change, but I smile,
>>laugh and try to give them encouragement too.
>
>Thank you for saying all this, Arlen.  I just started (last week!)
>learning contra dancing.  Despite having made MANY mistakes, I
>enjoyed myself tremendously, thanks mainly to experienced dancers
>with this same attitude.  Fortunately they greatly outnumbered the
>people with less patience and understanding.
>
	Nice to hear from a newcomer...welcome to the world of folkdancing.

	In our regular English dance community, it is a regular practice
	that during the first half of a dance, the more experienced dancers
	tend to try and ask less experienced dancers to dance.  After the
	break is when the more experienced dancers try to dance with their
	friends and favorite partners.  Of course, not everyone does this
	every dance, since sometimes you want to dance a particular dance
	with someone special or you want to dance with someone in particular.
	But by and large, we try to keep the newcomers stocked with reasonably
	experienced dancers.  Also, the callers try to call easier dances (and
	teach more) at the beginning of the dance.  They call more difficult
	dances towards the end of the dance.

	Note, this practice of mixing levels of dancing is not as prevalent in
	our NE square and contra weekly dance.  However, the callers for that
	dance do try to follow the pattern of calling easier dances at the
	beginning and working up to harder dances and teaching more at the
	beginning of the dance.

	Most dancers in our community are of the attitude that new dancers
	should be encouraged and not discouraged.  The few that don't hold
	this attitude are the kind that rush for the middle set with their
	favorite partners.  Newcomers and oldtimers that are dancing together
	just avoid the middle set and have more fun!  :-)

	Ted Ying			ted@welch.jhu.edu

#include <std.disclaimer.h>

	Tommy Thrush: "Oh no!  Mudman has been buried alive!"
	Captain Buffalo: "Don't worry, Tommy.  When evil threatens; good
		will always rise up to throw mud in its face.  Besides,
		there's his trusty sidekick, Squirt, arriving with a
		firehose."
	Tommy: "Wow!  Look at him now.  Mudman, he's the TOPS!  Makes
		monkeys out of COPS!  Mud-maaaan! ..."
Newsgroups: rec.folk-dancing
From: tamres@ssdd475a.erim.org (Louise Tamres)
Subject: Re: Etiquette Question
Organization: Environmental Research Institute of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Distribution: na
Date: 8 Apr 92 13:58:19


Just to add another perspective on dancing as a same-sex couple....
In addition to contra, I dance vintage and ballroom. My major peeve
is when people refer to "man's part" and "woman's part". I've 
noticed that those who dance both parts, are generally better dancers.
(There are great dancers who only do their part, so I'm not trying
to offend anyone).   

I now refer to this distinction as "lead" and "follow" parts. Since
using that terminology, many men in my club willingly try to follow,
when before they would never ever dance the woman's part. Dancing the
other side for the first time is an eye opening experience. 

I've developed the reputation of leading well, so quite a few women
approach me and ask me to waltz with them. Just don't ask me to do
the man's part, but I'll gladly lead any time I'm asked.

Crawling off my soapbox now....
 
A note about contras in my area. There's a coat rack covered with ugly
ties. When a woman dances the, um,... er,... well the .... guy's part,
(GAWD I can't believe I said that!), she will wear one of the ugly ties.

-- Louise
tamres@erim.org

P.S. To give credit where it's due: the concept of calling the dance
parts lead/follow rather than man/woman's part comes from Walter and
Nancyanna Dill. They teach a fabulous workshop on leading, following,
and roll reversal. I highly recommend catching it if they're in your
neck of the woods.
From: winston@ssrl01.slac.stanford.edu
Newsgroups: rec.folk-dancing
Subject: May Day Morris in Palo Alto
Date: 16 Apr 92 02:44:38 GMT
Article-I.D.: ssrl01.1992Apr15.184438.1
Organization: SSRL, Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lab

Bring the Sun up in Palo Alto on May Day!

On the morning of May 1st, the three Palo Alto morris teams -- Deer
Creek Morris Men, Mayfield Morris and Sword, and Fool's Choice Morris --
will dance the sun up at the Baylands Wildlife Sanctuary in Palo Alto.  

(Go East on Embarcadero until you can't go straight any more, then turn
left and follow signs.)

Dancing starts at about 5:20, continuing until the sun is well over the
horizon (assuming everything works).  Many spectators bring children,
who seem to get a big kick out of it.

The site is right on San Francisco Bay, which enhances the beauty of the
sunrise but makes it pretty cold and windy, so dress warmly.  

Please e-mail or call if you have any questions.

-- Alan

===============================================================================
 Alan Winston --- WINSTON@SSRL750.BITNET or  WINSTON@SSRL01.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU
 Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, Stanford, California 415/926-3056
 Physical mail to: SSRL -- SLAC BIN 69, PO BOX 4349, STANFORD, CA  94309-0210
===============================================================================
Newsgroups: rec.folk-dancing
From: viscuso@galileo.tc.cornell.edu (Paul Viscuso)
Subject: Re: contra-gypsies
Organization: Cornell Nat. Supercomputer Fac.
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 13:32:29 GMT

In article <204534@unix.cis.pitt.edu>, UTWILL@UNC.BITNET (Tom Wills) writes:
|> 
|>      I am writing to solicit comments of dancers' and callers'
|> feeling for the contra dance figures gypsy and gypsy meltdown.
|> For those who aren't familiar, the gypsy is a slow, staring-
|> into-the-partner's-eyes swing without arms, that is, the part-
|> ners walk around one another maintaining eye contact but not
|> touching.  The meltdown begins the same but then after some
|> "mutually and spontaneously decided" length of time whilst
|> unconsummated attraction wells up, the two turn the gypsy
|> smoothly into a swing.
... rest deleted

I enjoy the gypsy, and don't feel that it's really a forced artificial show of
desire.  It's a fun dance move, nothing more, nothing less.  But then again, I
have no trouble dancing with a man or a woman, or dancing the part of the man or
the woman.  I simply go to dances to dance.  Maybe I don't take life so seriously
as others.

Paul Viscuso
Cornell Theory Center
From: erickson@sherlock.ics.uci.edu (Scott Erickson)
Subject: Mihai David in So. CA (Romanian)
Newsgroups: rec.folk-dancing
Organization: Univ. of Calif., Irvine, Info. & Computer Sci. Dept.
Keywords: romanian, rumanian
Date: 14 Apr 92 17:52:19 GMT
Distribution: na


                           ROMANIAN DANCE WORKSHOPS

                               WITH MIHAI DAVID


Date			Time	Group
==========================================================================
Saturday	May  9	3:00pm	Veselo Selo
Sunday		May 10	7:00pm	Laguna Dancers
Monday		May 11	7:30pm	Conejo Dancers
Tuesday		May 12	7:30pm	Tuesday Gypsies
Wednesday	May 13	7:30pm	Cafe Danssa
Thursday	May 14	8:00pm	Westwood Co-Op
Friday		May 15	7:30pm	West Valley Dancers
Tuesday		May 19	7:30pm	Cal Tech Dancers

SPECIAL NOTE: Mihai will also be doing a series of 6 classes on Friday
	      Nights in April and May at Gypsy Camp in Los Angeles.
	      For more info about the Gypsy Camp classes, call 310/558-0746.

For more information, call
    Barbara Erickson 714/951-1229 [VOICE/FAX]

Addresses:
==========================================================================
Cafe Danssa		11533 W. Pico, West L. A.
Cal Tech Dancers	Campus - Dabney Hall, Pasadena
Conejo Dancers		Thousand Oaks Conejo Elementary School,
				280 Conejo School Road
Laguna Dancers		384 Legion Ave., Laguna Beach
Tuesday Gypsies		Masonic Lodge, 9635 Venice Blvd., Culver City
Veselo Selo		Hillcrest Rec. Center, 1155 N. Lemon, Fullerton
West Valley Dancers	Rec. Center, 5858 Shoup Ave., Woodland Hills
Westwood Co-op		Emerson Jr. High, Boys Gym, 1670 Selby Ave, West L. A.
--
Scott Erickson
From: resnick@clutz.nac.dec.com (Michael Resnick)
Newsgroups: rec.folk-dancing
Subject: Re: contra-gypsies
Date: 8 Apr 92 17:21:15 GMT
Reply-To: resnick@clutz.enet.dec
Organization: Networks and Communications, Digital Equipment Corporation

I realize that this has been touched upon, but I thought I'd mention
it again.

One item that comes to mind about what makes a gypsy fun or not, is
whether one is comfortable in making eye contact with another dancer.
The argument around gypsies reminds of the standard line concerning
English country dance.  "If you find it boring, then you're not making
eye contact".  Simplisticly, I think the same issues apply to both English
country dance as a whole and the contra dance gypsy figure.

					Michael
Newsgroups: rec.folk-dancing
From: gary@maestro.mitre.org (Gary Bisaga)
Subject: Re: Etiquette Question
Reply-To: gary@maestro.mitre.org (Gary Bisaga)
Organization: The MITRE Corporation, McLean, Va
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1992 21:52:34 GMT

In article <204155@unix.cis.pitt.edu>, pedersen@polar.bowdoin.edu (Sharon L. Pedersen) writes:
|> What do people think is the correct etiquette at a contradance for
|> asking and/or accepting and/or declining invitations to dance with
|> someone of the same sex?
As a straight western square dancer who dances at plus:  I normally will not
dance with another guy.  Not because I dislike dancing with a guy as a partner -
we're just dancing, not having an affair - nor because I don't like dancing
the woman's part - I often prefer it since it's often the more interesting of
the two and I am quite comfortable on the right side - but mostly because it
messes other people up.  The other people in the square will often be thrown
off when the caller says something like "men trade" and there's three men
in the wave.  In that case I will usually explicitly not make eye contact
so that the other guy standing next to me won't try to trade with me.  You
need to have a pretty good idea that (a) the rest of the square will be able
to handle it both technically and "morally", and (b) your partner will be
ok with it.  I would NOT do it, for example, in a new square of people I've
never danced with before unless they're all competent advanced dancers and
would be comfortable either way (one would hope anyway!!)

On the other hand, in a square with people I figure can handle it, with a
partner who will have fun with it too, I'm happy to do it!  Dancing should be
fun, you should have fun with it any way you and the others in the square
want to!

-- 
Gary Bisaga (gbisaga@mitre.org)
Newsgroups: rec.folk-dancing
From: HF.SLK@forsythe.stanford.edu (Stewart Kramer)
Subject: Re: Dancing Do's and Don'ts
Organization: Stanford University, California, USA
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 23:17:28 GMT

In article <1992Apr8.165236.20870@ads.com>,
charleen@ADS.COM (Charleen Bunjiovianna) writes:
>Helena says we should remember that we were all beginners once.  I say
>that we still are; the nature of the activity is such so that you can't
>say "I've learned everything I need to know to dance perfectly."  (With
>the possible exception of Stewart. :-)

Well, I beg to differ.  Dancing perfectly is not a matter of knowing
things, but of being perfect, which no one (including me) can be.

Challenge dancing depends on ruthlessly stamping out errors:
studying can teach you to pass the correct shoulder and turn the
correct direction, and experience can make you aware of mental traps
(e.g., forgetting interrupts, misparsing nested concepts, etc.) and
"red flag" situations like Pass In vs. Quarter In (where knowledge
must fight against intuition), but nothing can be done about failure
to pay attention.

Currently, most of my errors are from hearing what I expect to hear
rather than what was said, or from hearing the name of one call and
thinking of a different call (like saying "Blue" while thinking
"Green").  In either case, I usually catch these errors unless
something distracts me (because I've studied the flow of the calls
so that I can recognize these errors in others and say helpful
things like "not Split" at appropriate times; this same ability
enables me to recognize the call that I'm doing, or that everyone
else is doing, so I can say "Roll the Line, not Roll 'Em" to
myself.)

Stewart Kramer
---
"With a sharp enough knife, you can halve your cake and eat it two."
Newsgroups: rec.folk-dancing,rec.org.sca,alt.pagan
From: jonb@Ingres.COM (Jon Berger)
Subject: The place to be on May Evening
Reply-To: jonb@Ingres.COM (Jon Berger)
Organization: Ask Computer Systems Inc., Ingres Division, Alameda CA 94501
Distribution: ba
Date: 13 Apr 92 17:33:37 GMT

Berkeley Morris presents:

                             BRINGING IN THE MAY
                       A Celebration in dance and song
                       -------------------------------

Traditional music, not-so-traditional music, Morris dancing, other kinds of
dancing, sing-alongs, and lots of surprises.  All together in one place...

                       The Fellowship of Humanity Hall
          411 28th Street (between Telegraph and Broadway), Oakland
                        Friday, the First of May, 8:00 
                  $8.00; $4.00 under 12 / over 65 / students

Featuring these fine performing groups:

BERKELEY MORRIS         Doing the dance as old as May itself (nudge,
                        nudge).  Berkeley Morris will be making numerous
                        free appearances throughout the Bay Area during
                        the spring; see a separate posting for details,
                        and for an explanation of what Morris dancing is.

FRENCH CREEK            Traditional French and Celtic music, all the way
                        from the Sierra foothills.  French Creek is:
                           Alan Beilharz: mandolin
                           GF Cloud: guitar
                           Penny Cloud: hurdy-gurdy
                           Dorothy Hawkinson: fiddle

MARCH HARE              Proto-modern Eurobeat folk fusion.  We don't know
                        what it means either.  The Berkeley Morris Band
                        goes feral in its first aboveground appearance.
                        March Hare is:
                           Claire Beilharz: dulcimer
                           Jon Berger: fiddle, electric and acoustic mandolins
                           Avis Minger: fiddle
                           James Jacobs: cello, bass, recorder

OAK, ASH, and THORN     Jovial British Isles entertainment, a capella
                        (some call it "singing without music").  Songs in
                        riotous harmony about drinking and other country
                        matters.  OAT is:
                           Dale Hill: vocals
                           Doug Olsen: vocals
                           Dave Swan: vocals
                           Tom Wagner: vocals


Need more details?  Contact me by email.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jon Berger     jonb@ingres.com     {mtxinu,sun,amdahl,pyramid}!ingres!jonb
"If you push something hard enough, it will fall over." 
                                         -- Fudd's First Law of Opposition
From: asente@adobe.com (A Usenet Pal)
Subject: Re: Dancing Do's and Don'ts
Keywords: not-so-beginners, encouragement, fun, WSD, Challenge
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 21:05:46 GMT

In article <1992Apr8.165236.20870@ads.com> charleen@ADS.COM (Charleen Bunjiovianna) writes:
>more and more I run into relatively new
>C-1 dancers who think that if you're not smiling the whole time,
>something must be wrong.

On the other hand, a fixed idiotic grin during Square the Bases enhances the
experience immensely.

BTW, for anyone who thinks square dancers are a staid, sedate lot, our
after-party after last Saturday's dance at Spectacular was shut down by the
police!  Between the partying and the switch to daylight savings time, Sunday
morning's dance was sort of "The Dance of the Living Dead."  I'm glad we were
dancing to someone as energetic as Anne Uebelacker (and where did she get
*her* energy from??  She was at the party too).

      -paul asente
	   asente@adobe.com   ...decwrl!adobe!asente   moo-bear@cs.stanford.edu

Anyone who has attended a USENIX conference in a fancy hotel can tell you
that a sentence like "You're one of those computer people, aren't you?" is
roughly equivalent to "Look, another amazingly mobile form of slime mold!" in
the mouth of a hotel cocktail waitress.		- Elizabeth Zwicky
From: djp@ecs.soton.ac.uk (David Pritchard)
Newsgroups: rec.folk-dancing
Subject: Re: contra-gypsies
Date: 8 Apr 92 14:42:58 GMT
Organization: Electronics & Computer Science Dept, University of Southampton, UK
Originator: djp@marston


In article <204534@unix.cis.pitt.edu>, UTWILL@UNC.BITNET (Tom Wills) writes:
> 
>      I am writing to solicit comments of dancers' and callers'
> feeling for the contra dance figures gypsy and gypsy meltdown.
> For those who aren't familiar, the gypsy is a slow, staring-
> into-the-partner's-eyes swing without arms, that is, the part-
> ners walk around one another maintaining eye contact but not
> touching.  The meltdown begins the same but then after some
> "mutually and spontaneously decided" length of time whilst
> unconsummated attraction wells up, the two turn the gypsy
> smoothly into a swing.
>      You may have discerned from this description that I don't
> like the gypsy, and you would be right.  Part of my reason for
> writing is in hopes that callers will stop calling them alto-
> gether, or at least think twice about them.  The other part is
> that I have been trying to figure out why I don't like them and
> I hoped some discussion would clarify things.

As a dancer, and very very occasionally a caller, I would like
to point out that the gypsy is a very traditional English figure -
occurring frequently in the Playford collection, but is more of a
turn without hands than a swing without hands (i.e. 360 degrees only).  
I have never even heard of the meltdown variant on this side of the big pond
before, but since it could be called as two figures I can accept
the shorthand.  The gazing forlornly into a strangers eyes bit is great
fun, it usually causes them to fall over in fits of laughter (perhaps I
overdo it?)

Over here there is one caller in the Portsmouth/Southampton area
who seems to have invented his own `gypsy' figure, which is really
embarassing - I know of no experienced dancer who likes it.  It consists
of the `man' doing a sort of flamenco (turning on the spot, stamping,
finger clicking etc), while the `woman' dances around him with a
sort of eastern belly dance.  Not very English.  Probably not American
either.

-- 
Dr David J. Pritchard		
Electronics and Computer Science	tel	(+44 703) 592722
University of Southampton		fax	(+44 703) 593045
Southampton SO9 5NH			email	djp@uk.ac.soton.ecs (UK)
From: USERHEJF@UMICHUM.BITNET (Eric B. Arnold)
Newsgroups: rec.folk-dancing
Subject: RE: On the definition of "folk" ...
Date: 6 Apr 92 13:53:59 GMT

Your observations are interesting, Joel; I hadn't thought of that aspect
of the evolution of contra, but it's a point well made. Your comparing
medleys to drug highs strikes a bell -- we just had our Dawn Dance, which
had two great medleys -- and I recognize the response in myself.  Fortunately
on this occasion there were lots of dances that beginners could -- and did --
do, and the challenge to the better dancers to keep the sets going when
they encountered a knot of beginners was not less than the challange presented
by the medleys. Somehow we must learn to get at least as much satisfaction
from getting the beginners involved as we get from the medley "high"; of
course the ultimate satisfaction will be that we will still have fresh
people to dance with years down the line, and not just the same, old, tired
faces diminished in number by natural attrition.
The ability to do medleys, like the ability to do WSD, implies nearly
instant recognition of the calls combined with an almost automatic reflex
of movement, freeing the mind for other things which can range from
ornamentation of dance movements for self or partner, to appreciation of the
flow of the dance in the entire set. In the normal contradance, this leaves
room for considerable mental activity which can be well spent on figuring
out how to improve the dance for yourself & for those around you, particularly
those with sufficiently less experience that they burden the set as a whole.
The challenge to do this in a sufficiently graceful way so that they learn
something and appreciate learning something is a substantial one, and it
is very rewarding, in more ways that one, when one is able to do this.
 
Since I have only been dancing slightly over two years, it is easy to recall
when I was an absolute beginner and how many people helped me along &
tolerated my mistakes. Judging by the fun I'm having, peoples' reaction to
my dancing, and their frequent surprise when they find out how recently I
started, I feel that I have a great debt to those that encouraged me and
helped me along and made it a postitve experience right from the beginning,
and I hope to be able to pass along to others the ability to enjoy these
pleasures as I continue to enjoy trying to improve my own skills.
 
Newsgroups: rec.folk-dancing