From: justin@inmet.camb.inmet.COM (Justin du Coeur MKA Mark Waks)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Dancing at Pennsic
Date: 23 Jul 92 20:33:50 GMT
Organization: The Internet

Unto the good folk of the Rialto does Justin du Coeur send Greetings! It's
pleasant to see the Rialto productively arguing about something concrete
for a change -- the discussion of Dancemaster Amplification has been quite
interesting to date. This message is going to be pretty long, and all on
the one subject; I'm going to try to hit all of the sub-threads that have
sprung up.

This message will probably some out sounding a little negative about many
of the ideas; please don't let this be too discouraging, but I need to
winnow things down to the practical ideas, and fast. I have a proposal
for comment at the end, but more ideas and suggestions are still quite
welcome...


Dorothea, and one or two other people, suggested using megaphones to help
be heard. This is kind of interesting, and I'm curious about how much
experience people have with the things. Two years ago, we tried using a
rather homebrew megaphone that Niall whipped together. As I recall, we
abandoned it rather quickly as being not especially effective, and something
of a nuisance. It's possible, however, that a better one would work better.

So -- does anyone have experience using a megaphone under circumstances
like these? (Very high ambient noise.) Does it help? Are there tricks to
using one effectively? Does anyone have one that they can drag along to
Pennsic for us to try playing with? (I don't know if it's period, but
if it's demonstrably pre-period, as Dorothea suggests, then I'm willing
to give it the benefit of the doubt.) I assume that it's no substitute
for a good pair of lungs, but if it helps a decently loud dancemaster
be more effective, then it's worth playing with.


Several people have hit upon a fundemental problem: the Barn tends to
be the centerpoint for both dancing *and* socializing in the evenings.
Much though I'd like to believe otherwise, these are *not* entirely
compatible -- if there are a significant number of people shmoozing loudly
on the sidelines, it's difficult to run dancing and essentially impossible
to teach. It's not clear to me that there is any *good* solution to this,
short of getting another structure dedicated to dancing (which would be
an expensive proposition at best, and is clearly impossible for this
year).

The best way to help this that I can think of is simple education. I'm
currently thinking about finding someone to whip up a couple of largish
signs, which will point out that the dancemasters are trying to teach,
and that, in the name of basic courtesy, it would be generally
appreciated if y'all kept the noise down. (I'm open to wording suggestions
here.) I refuse to kick chatters out of the Barn entirely -- after all,
most of the people chatting are *also* dancing, but have decided to sit
a dance or two out. That being the case, we have to make people aware
of the problem, and hope that most will be reasonable about it.

(And who knows? Tibor's idea -- speaking at a normal voice, so that the
people trying to dance shush the people who are talking -- just might
work. I doubt it, but it might be worth a try...)

In a related note, Arval suggests that the people who want to learn
be grouped at one end of the Barn, so that the rest can socialize. It's
definitely a valid idea, but might backfire; the people chatting in
the non-teaching section will almost certainly wind up talking at full
volume, and given the acoustics of the Barn, this is still likely to
overwhelm the dance teacher. It might be better to have it more
dispersed, and encourage people to talk a little more quietly. I
don't know if that's realistic, but it might be...


A surprising number of people have suggested that the only way to cope
with the Ball is to simply not teach -- not even call -- at it. I hadn't
actually been planning on having any in-depth teaching, because I've
generally found that teaching during a Ball always slows the pace of
things down to a crawl. But I *had* assumed that calling would be
necessary, since many people would have freshly learnt the dance in
the past week (and wouldn't be confident in it yet), and many others
wouldn't have done the dance for quite some time (and would need the
reminders).

I find myself wavering. Riddle me this: have you, in the past, found
the calling during the Ball to be useful? Would anyone feel especially
put out if we *just* danced at the Ball, with no teaching or calling?
All dances done at the Ball *will* be taught during the week before,
and if possible we will schedule which ones when in advance. Certainly
the Ball is the worst of the problem -- it's both the time when people
feel most put out by the idea of electronic amplification (because it
can spoil the mood, in some peoples' eyes), as well as the time when
voice becomes most impossible. It would simplify things *enormously*
if we could simply dispose of it, so I have to take this idea quite
seriously...

Alaric suggested to me that we could publish the list of dances for
the Ball in advance, so that people could know what dances were
coming up, and maybe refresh their own minds. Better yet, maybe we
could do this before the War starts. That's a *very* interesting idea,
and one with a lot to recommend it. However, it requires that I put
the list together Real Soon, like in the next week. I just might do
this, but I'll want some input on what dances to put in. (See the
request for opinions at the bottom.)


A couple of folks (Esmeralda, Fairfax, maybe others) have opined that
using a herald to help teach *can* work, with the dancemaster speaking
at the herald, and the herald echoing at volume. Okay, I'm willing to
give it the benefit of the doubt -- anyone want to try it? I'm entirely
happy to try some experiments, and if we have at least one dancemaster
and one herald who want to give it a try, we can see how it flies.

(I'm still sure that it won't work for calling, though, because timing
is essential for calling a dance. I could be convinced that it will work
for teaching, though.)

Volunteers?


Several people have suggested that the thing to do is get a bunch of
people to help teach the dancing; the phrase "Journeyman Dancemasters"
seems to have gotten attached to this idea.

The problem here is organization. If I had a *lot* of people to help,
and enough time to properly train them, I could believe that this could
work. As it is, though, I simply can't see it working reliably. For
this method of teaching to really make things fly, you need at least
one person in every set. The number of people trying to dance in the
Barn is well up in the hundreds -- I wouldn't be surprised if a
thousand tried to cram in this year. That means that, to really be
effective, we'd probably need close to a hundred Journeymen, even
assuming that they distributed themselves evenly. And teaching adequately
simply isn't possible in such a short span of time. I agree with Grimmund
that a handout would help, but honestly, I don't have time to write such
a thing, and I doubt that anyone else does at this late a date. It's a
nice idea -- I can definitely see it working at a smaller event, with a
better-trained group. It might even be feasible at Pennsic someday. But
it's not going to happen in three weeks.

An informal version of this, though, is certainly worth encouraging.
One suggestion is to prod the people who *do* come to the evening
teaching sessions to a) help out the people around them, and b) spread
out through the crowd. This is possible, and would certainly make things
run a little more smoothly at the Ball...


Signigraoulph suggests that the movements of the dance could be
reduced to hand signals, which the dancemaster would use to visually
"call" the dance. Yeah, right. I get this image of a poor dancemaster
frantically semaphoring up on the stage. It's not likely to happen.
(But it might make a *great* article for next April's issue of the
Letter of Dance; I'll have to think about that one...)


I should toss in one point, lest anyone forget it: the idea of
amplifying the dancemasters during the Ball is *not* related to
that of amplifying Great Court. Personally, I don't think that
Court needs it -- when the heralds know what they're doing, they
seem to manage Court just fine. Bertram asks whether there is any
difference between these matters. My answer is: yes, about 30
decibels of ambient noise...

(One of the major points about the Ball is that it is so loud that
even a herald has difficulty making himself heard, as Lothar pointed
out. While I can see managing to reduce the ambient noise of the
evenings somewhat, through social pressure, that simply won't work
for the Ball -- the Ball is *about* socializing, as it should be,
and it simply isn't realistic to expect that to be quiet.)


Aryk suggests elevating the teacher a bit, with a podium or such.
'T'aint enough. I usually teach from the stage (about 2 feet up),
and while it helps a little, it's not nearly enough to make much
difference.

(Which isn't to say it's a bad idea; indeed, it's absolutely
necessary for the more crowded evenings. But it's something that
many of us are already doing...)


My nastier side really does sort of like Yaakov's period solution
(fines for being too loud), but I really don't have time in my
schedule to be lynched right now...


A Strawman Suggestion -- Does it Fall Down?
-------------------------------------------

Okay, here's a concrete proposal. I'd like opinions on it ASAP, because
I really have to decide what we're doing in the next week or so. Don't
be shy. I need to know whether you feel that:

-- This is a Great Proposal
-- This is a Lousy Proposal, and will destroy dancing at Pennsic
-- This is an Okay Proposal, but has the following problems...

You get the idea.


To start with, we assemble the list of dances to be performed at the Ball
well ahead of time (ie, by August 1st or so). We publish that list as
widely as possible. (The only practical way to do this at this stage is
to publish it to the Rialto, and ask people to spread it as much as
possible. Definitely an inferior solution, but there seems little other
way to get the word out in zero time.) This way, people have a little
time to ask their local dancemasters how the dances go before Pennsic.
(Admittedly, this part would have worked a lot better if I'd had a
couple of months' more notice. C'est la vie...) This list also gets
published at Pennsic, via the Daily Tidings or some such.

In the evenings of Pennsic Week, we have some teaching along with the
open dancing. We try to get all of the dances that will be done at the
Ball taught at least once. There will also be *some* teaching during the
day, but I really don't know how much -- that seems to be organized
through the head of classes, who I haven't had a chance to speak to yet.
We put up a sign or two, explaining that people are trying to learn here,
and asking folks in the Barn to please help keep the noise level down.

For the evenings in the Barn, we try some experiments. I'll probably
bring along a basic electronic system, although nothing as fancy as
what some have suggested. (Again, there simply isn't time to throw a
really good system together.) We also try using megaphones, and echoing
with a herald, if we can get the appropriate materials/people together
to experiment. Hopefully, at least some of these systems will help the
dancemasters avoid getting too fried.

The evenings will probably tend to fade from teaching to open dancing.
I'd probably encourage the dancemasters to get the important teaching
over by 10ish, because it gets steadily less effective and more
annoying. There should be *some* open dancing mixed in all the time,
to keep things interesting for the more experienced dancers. I don't
intend to schedule the evenings too much -- basically, each evening
will have a few specific dances that should be taught, and the rest is
up to the dancemaster's discretion. The dances that will be specifically
taught will be published, probably in the Daily Tidings, so that people
who want to brush up on a particular dance get some warning.

The people who attend the evening sessions will be exhorted to help
others out, especially at the Ball, so that those who know what they
are doing can help those who don't.

On the night of the Ball itself, there is *no* teaching, and *no*
calling. This fact is published widely in advance, along with the
list of dances that will be done. No great amount of staff will be
needed in this case -- basically we'll need an MC for the dances
(probably me), and a herald or two to help announce what's coming
next.

So -- will it work? Does it make sense? Have I forgotten anything?
*Please* write to me if you have any opinion, positive or negative.
I don't promise to take your advice, but I'd like to know which way
the wind is blowing. Even a "Go for it" message will be useful. Most
replies should probably go directly to me -- don't bother the Rialto
with it, unless you've got something new to add that hasn't been
discussed above...


Finally, a few other questions for people:

-- What dances would you like to see done at Pennsic? More specifically,
   what, say, three or four dances would you most like to see? I'm
   planning on putting the list together ASAP, so this is the time to
   get your tuppence in.
-- The suggestion of a Dancemasters' Gathering has garnered absolutely
   no response. Does anyone actually want this to happen? If not, I'll
   just punt...
-- I still need lots more dancemasters to help out. If things work out
   as described above, you won't have to deal with the Ball at all, and
   if I get a reasonable number of people helping, you shouldn't have to
   deal with an evening by yourself. Let's get some more help here...

				-- Justin du Coeur
				   justin@inmet.camb.inmet.com

"But *this* dancemaster goes to *11*..."