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!

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!

While you may or may not do the “New Year’s Resolution” thing, I believe a good party is always a great way to celebrate your friends, no matter what day it is.

Thankfully, in January, I’ve been blessed over the last couple of years to call a dance in Portland, OR, for the Rosetown Ramblers on the first Saturday of the month. This was, if I recall correctly, my 4th Black and White Ball.

This dance, like so many others I’ve called for the Ramblers, was electric. It was a high-energy dance with a great deal of overall excitement by all the attendees. I’ve called numerous dances where, if the dancers are not dancing, they’re sitting on the sidelines (maybe) making smalltalk with their neighbors.

The flight to Portland was uneventful. (I was even fortunate enough to be able to move my seat on the play to row 6, right behind first class. Score!) The lovely and delightful Shawn Ferguson picked me up at the airport and was my host for the day.  (Thank you for the 4 Star accommodations!)

The dance started with an hour and a half of Advanced dancing. We weren’t sure we were going to have enough for a square, but, as the buzzer sounded, we ended up with 2 squares the whole time. The dancers, overall, did well. I have a working theory about A2 dancing as I think that it requires a slightly different philosophical style from Basic/Mainstream/Plus dancing. With B/M/P, my goal is to keep you dancing with the “wind in your face” as much as possible. At Advanced, especially A2, this is a noble aspiration, but not required. I’ve learned, over the past 14 years doing this, that if squares break down because you’re pushing them harder, it is okay. Just don’t let it happen more than 10% of the time. (Dancers still need to be successful.)

After the A2 portion of the evening, there was a potluck dinner that was absolutely FABULOUS! I’m working at getting my “girlish figure” back so I took it easy, but I did sample quite a bit.

The Ramblers dance started promptly at 7:30 and we everyone just connected. It was great. Since it was the new year, I started the dance with Auld Lang Syne, did some patter, and then another singing call.

I started the dance with some high-energy music and just kept it going. About halfway through, I brought it back a notch or two, but then we kicked it into high gear for the rest of the night. It was great. I love to be able to call dances like that. I think at one point, we had four squares on the floor, but most of the night we had three, with three on the floor at the last tip.

There were, at first no new students, but when 3 walked in the door, I opted to alternate tips between student level and Plus. (I don’t like the term “level” because the dances are usually about content, not ability. However, these were beginners and this requires some special handling.) Not that I took it easy on the students. They got just as much energy and attention as the Plus dancers. I just had to modify my delivery a bit.

I had some requests for some Round Dances, so thankfully, I had some cue sheets in my bag. Mostly Phase 2 Waltzes and 2-Steps. Nothing too complicated, but I had a number of people dancing which was great.

There were visitors from Eugene, from San Francisco, and from the Seattle/Tacoma area, so there were lots of familiar faces and a number of new ones. I had a blast!

I was asked if I’d do next year’s first Saturday dance in January. The issue there is that it is New Year’s Day. I agreed to it, but will have to have them add a rider to my contract so there is pork and saur kraut served at the pot luck. (It is my traditional “good luck” dish for the new year.)

Thank you Ramblers for a great dance! I loved it.

Happy New Year!

I was going through some old, unread mail from the SD-Callers email list over the weekend (don’t post unless you have thick skin) and ran across an email that was actually from Buddy Weaver.

Bob Elling, owner of Riverboat Records (I think) is forsaking dosado.com and is going to sell his own music. I’m not sure why as I didn’t ask him. Buddy forwarded a few clips and, after I emailed Bob directly, he replied with two emails worth of music snippets.

Music is purchased via PayPal and is emailed to you from Bob as mp3 files. Songs were $5 each plus a $1 handling fee. Nothing’s free in this world, and I expect that the $1 covers PayPal’s service charge.

I bought two hoedowns. Fur Elise and Take Two. Fur Elise is a VERY WELL made reproduction of a “homemade” hoedown that has made the rounds in the Pacific Northwest. The original is by an artist named DJ Mystic. (I have a copy of the original via eBay. The problem with it is that it is a mashup of other people’s work, so it’s legality is suspect even with an original copy.) DJ Mystic’s version is fast and, to make it work for square dancing, it has been edited heavily and slowed down. Bob and his musicians did a very nice job recreating it.

The musicianship is great and the instruments are rich and full sounding. There’s no doubt, when you listen to it, where to put your feet down.

Take Two is what I would call an “interpretation” of Ann Lee’s song, 2 Times. While not an exact recreation, it is a stellar arrangement with excellent instrumentation. There are a few electronic instruments on both of these tunes but they never distract from the enjoyment of the music.

The third song I bought was “This Land is Your Land.” This was more of a random purchase, but I need some more “Americana” type music for holidays like Memorial Day and the 4th of July. Again, a nice full arrangement with nice sounding instrumentation that should be easy to dance to.

If you’re so inclined and want to give Bob’s music a listen, give him a shout. Here’s his email:

bob.elling@gmail.com

He’s got a host of other tunes as well, some contemporary, others not. I’m on the fence for a couple songs as well.

This music was just too good and I had to let people know.

I read lots of stuff. Sometimes, I can’t stop reading. If I’m reading a novel, I really focus on it, and little else. If I’m reading about anything else, I can have several books going at once. It lets me process the material from one subject while I’m engulfed in another.

One of the books I’m reading now is called The Imagineering Way: Ideas to Ignite Your Creativity. It is a short book by the Imagineers at the Walt Disney Corporation. It’s full of all sorts of tidbits. Some are the usual creativity and leadership stuff, but there are some real nuggets in there.

On page 169 is this quote: “What we do is a kind of art-we’re in show business, like it or not. The guests pay to be entertained. Our product must include caring an passion, not just formulatic cold procedure.”

This is so true of what we do as square dance callers. I, as a dance leader, could memorize the rules of the dance and just spit them back out week after week. It’d be just like reading to people. Or, I can study my craft, and put together a dance reads like a story.

A story that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. A story that has a young hero saving someone in distress, that overcomes all odds, and is victorious at the end. Best of all, it is a story that has a soundtrack.

I may be a story teller, but the heroes of my story are my dancers. Their foe? The unknown and uncertain.

In contra dancing, the dance leader has to do their best to stay out of the way of the dancers. The contra caller must let the dance speak for itself. In modern western square dancing, the caller has much more to do. Sometimes, callers do too much and the dance falls apart. When the caller does too little, the dance never comes together.

The best callers I know are, indeed, artists. They deliver their stories while managing so many other things. Those things include the music selection, music speed, and the music volume. Don’t forget the speed and timing of the delivery of the calls. Then there’s the opening of the show to consider. Someone has to welcome everyone and, if you welcome them, you have to bid them farewell. Finally, there are all of those little intermissions where we meet/greet everyone and tell the occasional side story and even offer a little levity.

There’s so much to think about that it’s hard to think at all. However, like that quote from above, there must be passion. Without it, the dance is cold and sterile.  No matter what program you call or dance, there must be at least a little fire. Otherwise, what’s the point?

News from Square Dance Land… at least my corner of it.

There’s a new Callerlab committee called “New Initiatives.” I’ve been asked, and accepted, to be the chair.

Its function has several aspects. (Though, I’m still a little unsure of one of them.)

One is to continue the work of the (now disbanded – I think) Program Policy Initiative. This is a discussion of how we can actively adapt the existing programs and mold them into a system that works better on an individual/local level.

Next, NI is going to actively maintain the Winning Ways document. The idea is to make it a living document that revisits past successes to see what still works, what might not work, and what changes took place to keep things going.

As part of NI, we’re going to be soliciting new ideas for the development and growth of the
square dance community and then find ways to engage our dancing population
to implement these ideas.

The last big part of the NE is probably the most fun. “Square Dancing in 50 Years.” What will square dancing look like in 50 years? How will it evolve? How will it grow? These are all hypothetical questions that allow us to talk about change but not feel threatened by it.

If you would like to be a member of the committee, here are the requirements. You must be in good standing and be an Active Member, Associate Member, Active Youth Member, Associate Youth Member, a Lifetime member, or a Partner of any of these members.

With the blessing of the Callerlab leadership, I may try to set up a group of dancers that are not callers to get their input as well. They might not be full committee members, but dancers have a stake in some of what we’re talking about, so I’d like to create a forum where I can get some information.

If you’re a caller and want to be a member (or a Vice Chair) please contact the Callerlab Home Office.

If you’re a dancer and want to be involved with any of these discussions, let me know… stephen.cole@isquaredance.com.

Thanks!

News from Square Dance Land.

It’s been so long since I’ve worked my square dance blog, I almost forgot my password.

I’ve got a lot of things to write about that happened over the summer (and from the spring too), but I’m going to go back and fill in as I can. I’ll try to stay current with what’s going on in square dance land today, and go back to fill in (from memory) stuff that’s been going on.

I’m not a marketing guru, but I’m a big fan of one. Seth Godin has become sort of a folk hero to me. I’ve been reading his books and following his blogs and I believe him to be brilliant.

If you want to find out yourself, his blog can be found at:

http://sethgodin.typepad.com

His blog today was about the the pursuit of the Olympics and how people bend over backwards to get them into their city. It turns out that nearly every city that has ever hosted an Olympics has regretted it financially. Seth’s question of the day:  How little patience would you have for the International Olympic Committee and their politics if they didn’t have a show people wanted to watch?

Seth goes on to make some valuable comments about marketing and how given the size of the Olympic Games how commercializing it is more like strip mining. (There’s not much skill needed due to the enormity of it all.)

However, my take on his post made me consider his question in a different light.

Related to square dance land, I’d like to rephrase his question.

How little patience would you have for your square dance club’s politics if they didn’t host an event you wanted to attend?

Based on declining numbers of square dancers, I’d argue that people are having less and less patience for such politics. Our numbers are down. They were down from their hayday when I started dancing in the 1990s, but I’ve seen them dwindle more and more every year. It’s depressing.

With the smaller numbers, a few clubs have seen their politics become condensed. Several have folded under the strain.

I feel that there are a number of reforms that have to take place to increase the popularity of square dancing. However, with the best of reforms, it will be for naught if we can’t eliminate the poison that is politics.

Time will tell.

Until next time, (which I hope is soon) keep dancing!

I’ve not updated my News from Square Dance Land Blog in some time… I’ve had my hands full with my updates about Elijah.

http://elijah719.wordpress.com

I hope to get back on track with SD stuff soon.

Stephen

News from Square Dance Land…

At some time at the beginning of the year I got an email asking if I’d be willing to do a birthday party for their son’s western-themed 16th birthday party. After a little of back and forth (so I knew what was expected) we agreed on time, place, and price.

April 4th was the date, and that evening, I packed my gear and headed out to teach and call square dancing to a bunch of kids and a few of their parents.

I never really know what to expect at events like this. So, I start with a basic blueprint of what I think the evening should look like and modifiy it as it goes. I was told “western-themed” so I figured I’d use some more traditional sounding music to start and move to more modern stuff. (After all, they were 16 year old, and I do think that people can connect to music they know. That connection may be in the subconscious, but it is still there.)

I got there and set up without issue. (Thankfully, I used Google Maps in advance because the GPS in my car didn’t have a clue as to where I was to be.) In south Chandler there’s an island of unincorporated Maricopa county. No cookie-cutter houses there and, believe it or not, there were horses and a couple of acres of open space. It was on the dark side, so I couldn’t see it all, but it was really cool.

The dance space was outside in a rather large patio/parking area. It was well lit with softer lights and, because of the cloudless night, a little on the cool side. (I’m glad I had my vest, but I wish I’d worn a hat.)

I had three squares of people. There was a small gender imbalance, so two boys danced together and didn’t think twice about it. I did three sets of about 20 minutes each. Not quite 20 minutes, but we started again every 20 minutes.

The first two sets were about the same. Run though a similar set of calls and teaches. Circle Left, Circle Right, Partner, Corner, Dosado, Allemande Left, Right and Left Grand, Promenade, Right/Left Handed Stars, Star Promenade, Ladies Center Men Sashay. After working the material, I put it in a song. I forget what songs they were, but they were upbeat tunes that I thought they’d recognize.

The third tip, I introduced Sides Face Grand Square. This call is a little more involved (for those that don’t square dance) as it is 32 beats long and requires everyone to do their own part. It is so funny, because there’s something about getting this call and doing it right that makes people cheer when they do it.

After the third tip, some more people arrived to wish the birthday boy well, and they took a small break. This took the wind out of the sails for most of the crowd, but I still had about 8 people that wanted to do a little more. So, I did one last tip and introduced Ladies Chain.

It was a fun event. Afterwards, I was invited for some cake and ice cream and enjoyed some time around a campfire. It was a great bunch of kids/young-adults.

When it was time for me to head home, one of the young men there paid me a wonderful compliment. He told me that he had such a good time that he was going to seek out square dance lessons. (I told him if he couldn’t find any, let me know and I’d make something happen.)

What a great night!

Until next time, keep dancing!