Stephen’s Square Dance Blog

Last night I did my last square dance gig as a resident of AZ.

There’s an LDS church in Litchfield Park, AZ that had me do an event earlier in the year for an adult Sunday school group. They had me come back and do one for their teenage Sunday school group.

These were mostly 12, 13, and 14 year olds (some older, some younger) whose leadership wanted them to engage of an activity that would help teach them respect an interaction. What better than square dancing?

I went in prepared for a massive gender imbalance. I know teens and dancing. (At least teen boys.) However, it wasn’t horrible. I think I only had 2 women dancing as men the whole time *and* I had five squares.

I had a fabulous time and I think they did too.

I thought that I would be doing some non-square dances, but it wasn’t really needed. I did mostly squares.

My beliefs may be different than then theirs, but I’ve got this to say about the LDS events I’ve done. (I’ve done either 4 or 5 since I’ve been here in AZ.) Every group has been polite and helpful at every event. Everyone participates (even if it is only once) and, afterwords, a sizable number number approach me to offer thanks and/or offer to help me carry things out to my car. They are fabulous folks and I appreciate them.

I hope to get at least one more blog post in before I leave for WA. However, if I don’t, I see you all in Washington!

Keep dancing!

I can’t begin to say how much I enjoy teaching. There’s just something about it that I really connect with. It’s hard to explain. I do know that I get as much out of teaching as my students do. (I think so, anyway.)

On Monday, April 5th, I headed to Scottsdale to fill in for Dale Dockery at the Bucks and Bows. They are a Plus club that, like many, teaches their new dancers from zero to the Plus program. It’s a lot of material to cover, but the B&Bs are coming along nicely.

This was my first outing with this group, so I started slowly to figure out how proficient they were. Dale and Pat sent me a list of the Plus moves they’ve covered so far, which was great, but it turns out that one couple had missed the previous week, so I had a little ground to (re)cover.

The calls they knew were Ping Pong Circulate, Linear Cycle, Coordinate, Fan the Top, Relay the Deucey, Crossfire, All 8 Spin the Top, and Chase Right.

The review was pretty smooth. I had to spend some extra time on Relay the Deucey and Crossfire. Also Coordinate caused us a little hiccup. All things considered, it went pretty smoothly.

I wasn’t sure what to teach, so I went with Load the Boat and Peel Off.

I teach Load the Boat a little differently than most. As such, I have the hardest time getting existing dancers to do it. My experience has been that it works INCREDIBLY well, but many won’t do it because they like working alone. (Or, show off.)

Modern Western Square Dancing is the “Art of Dancing with Hands.” When you do Load the Boat, if the Centers Pass Thru then *touch hands*, they will know who to turn their backs on. Then, *touching hands* with the person next to them, they’ll know who their partner is in order to Trade. Then, they can do their final Pass Thru.

The key is touching hands and it helps everyone. Trouble is, I can’t get the experienced dancers to do it. I suspect that many dancers like to demonstrate that they know the route of the call. (Hence the “show off” aspect I mentioned earlier.) It is, technically a hands-free move, but again, if everyone is helped by touching hands, why not do it?

I’ll be back for lessons on the 12th and 19th and calling a dance for them on the 23rd. (Thank you Dale and Pat for the opportunity. I appreciate it.)

In my next post, I’ll talk about some of my new music….

Until next time, keep dancing!

It was a great time. Lots to report, and I’ll work on that over the next week or so.

In the meantime, I got a compliment via email that I wanted to share…

“Thanks for a great dance. We needed a fun time as a club. Everybody is talking about it.”

That was one of the nicest things that anyone has ever said to me. It’s going in my “attaboy file.”

I agree, it was a fun dance… I just wish they weren’t so far away.

Until next time…

Keep dancing!

On Saturday, March 20th, Martha, Eli, and I headed to Prescott, Arizona, where I called and cued their dance.

They had two squares on the floor the whole night with a few sitting out. Martha and I enjoy this club a lot and we always have a good time when we go.

We got an early start on our trip up due to construction on the way. (With a lot of it in our own neighborhood.) We also wanted to go eat at a Mexican restaurant that was on the way to the dance. We found it, actually, when we went to Lake Havasu and it is called Casa Bonita. Sadly, it wasn’t the same as our Lake Havasu experience. Close, but not quite. (My criteria? Fajitas and chips.) While it didn’t meet my (high) expectations, the food was still tasty and the service was excellent. (We’ll eat there again, I’m sure.)

The dance was a lot of fun. The have a new class that is through Mainstream so, for them, I split tips; alternating Mainstream and Plus. It is not my ideal situation, I prefer to call one program so that everyone gets the same value for their money, but I do what I have to do to entertain everyone.

The dance was fun, and everyone was having a great time, but what made the dance an event was their pie auction/fundraiser that they did about halfway through the dance. The week prior, the club asked me if I’d be the auctioneer for it. I’d never auctioned anything before but offered to help. Thankfully, I’d observed the auctioneering talents of Jerry Story and Jon Jones at a pair of Callerlab conventions, so I did what I could to emulate them. I must have done a good job as we turned 15-20 pies into $249. (I didn’t count the number of pies, but did remember the dollar figure.)

I used some of my new Royal Platinum music (which I’ll review in the days/weeks to come) and a fair amount of pop music as hoedowns. (A number of people remarked on how much they liked the sound an feel of the new music.)

Also, I was the Round Dance cuer for the night. This isn’t the only club that asks me to pull double duty for a dance. I enjoy it, but I have to add more Round Dances to my library. I am going to be reaching out to some of my cuer friends to put together a book of “Round Dances for the Square Dance Caller.” I think that if I could find Round Dance cue sheets that were all Phase 2, I could put together a book of them and (with the choreographer’s permission) sell it with the proceeds going to the Callerlab Foundation for the Preservation of Square Dancing. I’ll update everyone with the status of this project over the next few weeks/months as well.

It was a good day and a fun dance. It was a long day though. We left home at around 2:30 and got home after Midnight. Eli had no issues at all. He enjoyed everyone’s attention and did fuss at all. (Outside of his normal fussiness, anyway.)

We’re looking forward to our next visit to the Mile High Squares!

Egads! One of my resolutions for 2010 was to stay caught up with my blogs. Easier said than done. Though, I’m going to get and stay focused.

Here are some random things for today, and I’ll get more posted over the next few days.

I’ve not had a huge number of gigs in Arizona so far this year, but I’ve been busy. (Especially with Eli, but that’s another story for another time/blog.)

Here are the highlights from the dances I’ve had but not blogged about.

January 9th – This was a (solo) visit to the White Mountain Rim Rompers. We’d had a busy few days with Eli the week prior, so felt that it would probably be best if he stayed home and just “chilled.” We had a nice dance. A square of folks for the Plus workshop and then two squares (with some extras) for the dance. They are a Mainstream club, but many of their members dance the Plus program. So, if they had only Plus dancers on the floor, I called Plus. If Mainstream only dancers were up, then I kept it Mainstream. (No matter what, I made sure they had fun all the time.)

January 16th – I was honored to be able to call for part of Dessert Valley Squares’ annual fly-in. It’s a mini-festival of square dancing and always fun. It’s the third fly-in that I’ve called for and all of them have been real events. I worked with the legendary Bob Jones for my set. The dancing was fun, and the food was outstanding! DVS knows how to take care of people.

January 28th – I took the family on a road trip to Lake Havasu for the London Bridge Squares. We had a blast. LBS is a great group and a lot of fun. They’ve booked me for next year already. We had, I think, 4 squares, but 3 danced most of the night. The lovely and talented Nancy Mouser did the rounds. They put us up for the night and we played tourist on Friday. The London Bridge was cool, but I was disappointed in the kitsch around it. I expected more British fare, but it was more geared to the college/bar-hopping set.

February 12th – The family and I headed to Washington state for a small vacation and some calling dates. This initially was supposed to be a Woodinville Toe Stomper dance, but they have since folded.  Our friends Susan and Larry Morris helped me put on the dance on our own. We landed and got to the dance no problem. We had 4 squares and a fun time. I tried a “Take No Prisoners” set in place of pre-rounds. It didn’t go as well as I’d have liked, but we had fun. I called and cued the whole dance. It made for a long night, but we all had a good time.

February 13th – We headed to Puddletown for their Valentine’s Day dance. What fun! We did some mixers and split the tips for the new students and the experienced ones. Martha and I love this club and its members/guests. We had a blast. (And we had some visitors come just to see Eli.)

February 14th – Just a quick visit to Spike Reid’s Sunday Plus. I wasn’t calling; we were just visiting. However, Spike let me call a tip which was great. I thought they started at 8, but they started at 7, so we missed some dancing. However, better late than never.

February 15th – We headed over to Monday Squares where Rem Remington let me split the night with him. Just like old times. We didn’t have enough for 2 squares.  So, we kept the tips short/sweet and had some fun with it.

February 21st – We headed to Solo Squares for a visit with our square dance family there. Their caller, Cliff Nichols, took over when we moved to AZ and has done a great job of entertaining them. He even asked me to call a tip of which I was (and am) thankful.

Tomorrow, March 20th, I’m calling at the Mile High Squares in Prescott.

Over the next week or so, I’ll be providing more updates of some behind the scenes things I’m working on here in AZ. Never a dull moment!

Until next time, keep dancing!

News from Square Dance Land…

On March 14th, Martha and I headed north to Show Low so that I could call for the White Mountain Rim Rompers. It is a bit of a drive… over three hours …but it is a beautiful one, and the club has some of the nicest people you could meet.

An added bit of fun to the trip was seeing snow. It was still in the mid-60s (fahrenheit for those of you that use the metric system) in Phoenix, and we’d not seen snow all season. (Well, I saw it in Portland, in January, but that’s different.)

They’ve the running a set of Plus program workshops the hour before the dance for those that have been interested in learning. There’s no pattern to it and every caller teaches something different. In hindsight, I should have taken a checklist with me so they could keep it in their hall. I worked three calls. Peel Off, Peel the Top, and Crossfire. There’s not much time to do more in only 60 minutes.

I had one square for the workshop and two squares of Mainstream with a few stragglers. Near the end of the dance, they’ve traditionally asked for one Plus tip. This dance was no different, but the funny thing was that nearly everyone got up to dance. (Or, at least try.)

The dance was fun. At the end of the dance, someone requested the Grand Colonel Spin. Normally, if I’m going to do this dance, I’ll work up to it so that the teach is short. Since I didn’t have the time to do it, we ran it cold. They did a pretty good job. It is a timing pattern and, if you cut corners or take shortcuts, it doesn’t always work out right. One square got it, the other one came close. (I just don’t know how to *make* people do a Grand Square correctly. It’s probably because I don’t make people do anything… it’s not my style.)

Thankfully, there was no stage to jump off of this time, so no injuries to report.

After the dance was over, Martha and I were hosted by Chuck and Mary Ellen Bittorf. Again, two of the nicest people on the planet. Mary Ellen made us some of the best pancakes ever! We can’t thank them enough for their hospitality.

The drive home was uneventful the next day back into the Valley of the Sun!

Until next time, keep dancing!

News from Square Dance Land…

On March 7th, Martha and I headed over to Mesa where I called for the Checkmates. For those that do not know, this is a Plus club, and they’ve got a really nice hall. I think it was once heralded at a Senior Center, but is now called, I think, a Multi-Generational Center. It is well lit, with great floors.

The evening started out a little rocky, the dance was fun, and then ended with a small disaster.

I think I mentioned that I’d had a small falling out with another club in the area about how I do dances. If I call some basic material, and the floor breaks down in a major way, I’m going to fix it and move on. Some think what I’m doing is work-shopping, and that may be true, but really what I do is set everyone up for success. (At least I try to do this.)

Before the dance, one of the club members asked to speak to me privately about this matter. I didn’t really know what he wanted, but we spoke about it. He was very blunt about how he felt. He was of the opinion that if dancers couldn’t cut it, I should just keep calling for those that could. I kept my cool, but I did tell him that while I was there to call a dance, if the floor breaks down, I’m going to fix it. People don’t pay me to stand around and stare at the stage. I also said that were I anyone else, I doubt that we’d be having this conversation and it was borderline inappropriate. He disagreed, but I’d like to see him try to lecture some of the other callers that come visit. I’ll sell tickets and popcorn. After he lectured me, he then left the dance. He didn’t even wait to see how it turned out. Go figure.

The dance was fun. We had, about six squares for the evening. Five at the very end. (There’s always a few that try to get away early to get a good seat at Denny’s. I kept it pretty middle of the road difficulty wise but I also liked to keep the tempo on the brisk side. Not so fast that they’re running, but I think far too many dances that I’ve been to are way too slow.

Steve Harris was the Round Dance Cuer and he did an excellent job. He was set up before I got there, so I didn’t have to even take my equipment out of the car. That was nice.

I said, at the beginning of this post, that there was a small disaster. We had five squares at the end… they made a big ring to say “Thank You.” I said (foolishly) “wait, I’ll join you!” Then proceeded to step off the stage on to a chair, then on the floor. In a perfect world, it would have happened just that way. However, it turns out that the chairs are not really built to have 200+ pound men step on them. So, I went through the chair and landed face-first on the floor. The chair frame punctured my pant leg, scratched my skin and put a small hole in the skin. Yes, there was blood. No, there was not a lot of it.

My pride was damaged the worst though.

I got up, we said thank you, and I limped back on stage to pack my stuff. Thankfully, Steve Harris (as I also mentioned already) had used his gear, so all I had to do was pack my laptop. Someone gave me a bandage and that stopped the bleeding for the moment.

When I got home, I surveyed the damage. I had a huge bruise, a small puncture wound, and a large scratch. I cleaned it all out and was fine. (I had a tetanus shot back in 2001, so I’m still good there.)

The next day, I got a note from one of the club members asking how I was and to send him some information for insurance purposes. Not long after I learned that the club insurance only covers what happens to the dancers. It doesn’t cover what happens what callers do idiotic things.

That week… to add insult to injury …I developed a toothache. Turns out that I had “cracked tooth syndrome” and it may have happened when I landed on the floor. (My head didn’t hit the floor, but the tightening of the jaw and the sudden stopping would have been enough.) That resulted in some quality time at the dentist’s office and a gold crown.

What fun.

Until next time, keep dancing!

News From Square Dance Land…

Ever since I started my own website (which needs an overhaul in my copious free time) I’ve gotten about 1 request a month for a square dance party.  I’ve always been hesitant to tell anyone this little secret because I enjoy the business and fear losing it. However, I’ve turned down a few parties too, so the more the merrier.

I got a call, rather out of the blue, from a woman that wanted to do an event with her church. It was at an LDS church about 30+ minutes away from home so I said sure.

When I got there, it was pretty sparse and the organizer was a little nervous, but right around the time we were to start, people started to show up. It was dinner and dancing and some came dressed up in western looking attire. (There’s a certain amount of people that associate square dance with the old west.)

I had, at most, five squares going on at one point. However, most of the night was three. It was a party, so I didn’t make it hard and while people were nervous at first, once they got started, it was hard to get them to stop.

I use a variety of music during my parties… some old, some new, all fun.

I believe a great time was had by all.

News from Square Dance Land…

On the 25th of February, I taught my last session for the Mainstreamers. It was fun while it lasted.

There was food before the dance. By food, I mean a HUGE spread of things to eat. No wonder I’m not getting thinner.

Also, we had lots of visitors! (Where we these people when we needed Angels? For non-square dancers, Angels are those people that know how to square dance that come help fill out squares.) There were some dancers there that could have used the refresher. (Oops, was that my outside voice/typing?)

Among the visitors were two other callers, Jim Logan and Don Spurgin. This was planned because they wanted dancers to have a chance to get a Purple Heart badge. (This is where you dance in a square with 3 callers.) To do the 3 caller thing, I had to use a headset which is not my favorite thing. My headset is very prone to feedback. It squeals, loudly, when it gets close to my speakers. Yuck.

I also had my first equipment failure, ever. When I plugged in my turntable, it made a loud buzzing noise. To call it a hum is an understatement. Egads. Thankfully, Jim had his turntable in his car, and I was able to use it.  (When I got home, I plugged in my turntable to check it and the hum was still there.  I took it apart, foolishly, to see if I could find a problem, but there were too many things that I didn’t understand so I put it back together. Miraculously, the buzzing stopped.)

It was a fun dance. Don asked me, when we danced in the Purple Heart tip, if he had to dance it straight. I didn’t really understand the question, but what he meant was “can I clown around?” I told him he could do whatever he wanted as he was a grownup. (I’m not one for horseplay when I’m dancing.)

Rather than call one Purple Heart tip for everyone, we just rotated people in and out of the square after we got to our home positions. This worked out very well as, I think, nearly everyone had a chance to dance with the three of us.

Since this was a “graduation” dance, I didn’t teach anything. I barely reviewed anything. (With visitors/guests, I like to let people show off just a little bit. No one likes to look bad in front of a crowd.)

At the end of the dance, both Jim and Don called a tip and did a great job.

It was a nice dance and, for some, a teary farewell. I’m going to miss everyone.

Until next time, keep dancing!

More (old) news from Square Dance Land…

I know, I know. I promised more updates more frequently. Rats. (I’m on vacation next week that will end at the National Square Dance Convention, so I may or may not have time to make many more updates.)

February 18th was my second to last dance with the Mainstreamers out in Apache Junction.  People were sad to see me go, and a couple asked if it was a political thing. I don’t think it was. My style, I think, is pretty open. I do use more contemporary music than most, but that’s rarely been a deal breaker. The issue was that they wanted to do lessons on the same night that they had dances.

Doing lessons/dances on the same night has both advantages and disadvantages. If people already have that night free, then it is a great fit. Once they learn, they’re used to being away from home that night. The disadvantage is that it can make for a long night, especially for those that come help the new people and then stay to dance.

There were quite a few people that were “walking wounded.” Bad knees, bad hips, and bad backs all get in the way of a good dance experience.

To accomodate the lesson/dance schedule the Mainstreamers wanted, they felt that a better start time was 6:00 and I just couldn’t get there.

Even with a couple of weeks left, I wasn’t about to quit, so we kept plugging along. We’d finished the Basic program and started working the Mainstream movements. I like to work them back to front because, all too frequently, we run out of time at the end. The last call on the list is Recycle and new dancers struggle with it because the see it right at the end and don’t get it worked/reviewed as much as it needs.

It was a night with a lot of review but had lots and lots of smiles. My kind of dancing.

Until next time, keep dancing! (And keep smiling!)