A simple pact of silence

One of my contra friends (I think Maia?) recently posted swearing a pact that they would do one very simple thing to do their part to increase the joy and understanding on their dance floors: Stop talking during walk-throughs.

I am a person who talks _incessantly_. I am also a pretty good teacher, and competent (sometimes extremely so!) at teaching most of the dance forms I find myself doing. However, I think that this suggestion is a damn good one, and I'm officially throwing in my lot. I, Katarina Whimsy, in pursuit of a Better Dance Floor and More Accessibility For Beginners do solemnly swear that I will shut my damn mouth when the caller or MC or teacher is talking through the dance the first time. Even if I think I can teach it better. Even if I think they're missing something important. Even if someone really charming is my partner and we're fourth couple and I'd rather be flirtingtalking to them than paying attention because I know I can pick it up once the music starts.

Should you catch me not, feel free to give me a pinch. And absolutely, I will continue to teach beginners as I dance with them, in the spaces between rounds of the dance, and fast gestures and frantic words called while we move. But while the Person In Charge is talking, I am going to _shut up_ and let them talk. They've got a plan going on here, let's let them actually do it.

So signed, so true.

Bluesy Tuesy Review (June 2nd)

Last night I went to Bluesy Tuesy, one of the local blues dances! This was about my third time ever making it to that event, and only the first time I actually made it at the starting time, instead of wandering in half an hour before close to wave at friends and kidnap the DJ.

I was in exactly the right headspace for Blues last night --kinda depressed, kinda broken, and in desperate need of something a little dark and sexy to help prop me up and face the rest of the world. I meant to get there in time for the lesson, but decided that it was more important for me to eat something before going dancing, and so strolled in about ten minutes before the open dancing started.

And it was...really good, actually. Blues can be a bit of a craps shoot, in that any dance form predicated on not leaving-space-for-Jesus can easily turn into a nightmare for my prickly "you do not have the right to my body" brain. Because for all that I am friendly, and cuddly, and even sexual with my friends, it's just that: friends. There's a lot of ways in which I do not like being touched by strangers or people I don't know well, and I am strong and loud and self-assured and will *not* let you touch me in those ways.

But it turned out to be a completely unfounded fear. Every dance I had started out with plenty of space between me and my partner, whether I was leading or following, and in only very few cases did I have to do any subtle pushing away. No one tried to force me closer, and at the break, they actually announced that the dance floor was a safe space and if anyone was feeling uncomfortable, they should _please_ go talk to the hosts, who would speak with the perpetrator and remind them of the social norms.

(This is not to say I did not have any sexy close blues dances. There are definitely people with whom I'm willing to sidle up against and press my crotch to their leg and vice-versa as we dance. But they're usually people I've known a while, who I've observed dancing and learned their foibles, and who I trust implicitly to keep the sexy to the dance floor.)

So I had a wonderful time, and was able to do a lot of really good leading and following without anyone feeling uncomfortable about it. Being as I don't do blues much, nearly everyone I danced with was a stranger (though there were a handful of "oh yeah, I've seen you around the dance scene...", and like I said, at least a few friends.), which made it even more impressive that no one tried to push boundaries in any unpleasant way.

Summation? 10 out of 10, would dance again. Maybe next week after my house meeting, if there's time. One of the nice things about Bluesy is that it's a _long_ night --the dancing officially runs from 8:30 to 11:00, but often goes for a half hour beyond that if the DJ is feeling keen and the floor is still hopping. So there should be plenty of time for me to stop by and dance

So I've found my life's passion...what next?

My friend Tamra looked at me a couple times while she was visiting, and pointed out that I get really passionate when I talk about dancing. Like, she can tell it's important to me --tell that it's one of the most important things in my life-- because of the way I light up, and start moving, and stumble over my words in my haste and enthusiasm to explain everything I love about it.

Dancing is important.
Dancing is incredibly important.
Dancing is, if not the single most important verb in my life, certainly in the top three¹, and my life would be radically, shatteringly, different (and worse) without it.

Dancing is an activity that has significant connections to freedom, sex, kink and power dynamics, kinesthesia and body awareness, gender, GENDER, costuming, teaching and learning, performance, mathematics and patterns, joy, flirtation, and fun. That list is basically the complete "things wot Kat will perk up for", minus the spiders and board games, and both of those can be found in spades at Pinewoods.

So.

I am passionate about dance. What can I do with this. How can I --for lack of a better term-- monetize my passion.

(It's not about making money. It's about creating a world for myself where I can spend as much of my time as possible doing things that make me wave my hands around and physically bounce up and down. There are two ways to find this world, and one of them involves finding a method of capital acquisition that I love so much that I feel genuine joy participating in it².)

How can I work out my world so that, at the very least, I get to engage, and meta-engage, in this most wonderful activity as often as possible.

How can I bring my passion to other people, how can I find other people with similar minds, how can I better do teaching, and outreach, and gosh I don't even know.

Dancing is important. How do I bring it to the rest of the world?

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1: It ranks behind writing and ahead of teaching, but then we get into verb-combination and sometimes I get to teach people to dance.

2: The other involves finding a method that will get me as much capital as possible, in as little time as possible, and then spending all of my non-capital-achieving hours engaging in activities that bring me genuine joy. There's a third method, but I'm no good at dismantling capitalism.

Words that I have excised from my vocabulary that could now theoretically creep back in:

In Candidate Class, one of the things that is tested for your Unit 2 is your ability to brief the dances before performing them. However, these briefs must be manual-perfect, which means there's quite a few SCD colloquialisms that have dropped from my vocabulary lately, lest I become too comfortable with them and forget myself during the exam.

(As an aside, I actually had an interesting discussion with Jeanetta McColl about this, due to my originally putting "widdershins" into my exam lesson plan. Her reasoning, which is very sound, is that due to the truly international nature of Scottish Country Dancing, having standardized language that is used and shared by everyone across the world is much easier than hoping people will understand your alternate terminology.)

The classic example is "Hello-Goodbye Setting", which in official parlance is better known as "Set to Corners and Partner¹", but even something as mundane as "corner-partner-corner-partner" has a more official briefing as "turn corners and partner". There's a lovely woman who runs the Salem class who you can make scream if you call right hands across at the top and bottom "teapots", and quite a lot of contra dancers who will understand what you mean perfectly well if you call them "stars", but neither term is remotely correct. And of course, we never do a double anything, we do the thing twice.

(Which is honestly the biggest shame --the rest of that is fiddly, but "double crossover mirror reels" is dead simple to say, and evocative in a way "1s dance reels first with opposite sides then with own sides, crossing down between the 2s and 3s to begin" just isn't.)

Of course, all eyes are going to be on me² for the next few years as I find my footing as a teacher and start my unit 4 portfolio³, so we'll see whether I can actually loosen up my tongue. And who knows? If I'm ever calling a dance in South Africa, I'll be quite glad I've the experience of being able to brief something everyone would understand.

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1: Not set to corners and partnerS, as I continually flubbed. There's definitely a polyamory joke in here somewhere...

2: Not actually true, I don't think, but our tutors liked to emphasize the fact that as new teachers, everyone would be looking to us as role models.

3: Assuming I passed my units 2 and 3, oh gods, the waiting!

Choreography and Communication

Choreography is an important part of most of the types of dancing I do. It matters some in couples dancing (where figures can have a fairly precise path that must be followed if they're going to look and feel good), and it matters significantly in set dancing. In fact, one could easily argue that choreography is the whole POINT of set dancing --while you could just move directly to where the caller next wants you, that strips the entertainment of what makes it great. The point isn't to mill around on a dance floor, the point is to create patterns, follow paths, flow gracefully thoughout your set.

(Some of the prettiest patterns I've seen in set dancing result in very little net movement when all is said and done --Relay the Ducey, for all its winds and turns, is the same net change as "circulate twice".)

That being said, being good at choreography does not necessarily make you good at dancing, and vice versa. I'm living proof of that latter rule --I consider myself to be a fairly competent dancer (and routinely receive outside confirmation of that fact) but if we're being perfectly honest, I'm pretty lousy at a lot of choreography --especially squares. While I've technically learned all of A1 and A2, (and at least a dozen calls from C1!) were I quizzed on the actual definitions, I'd be at a complete loss. Yet I'm able to keep up on an A2 dance floor with relative ease, and have even been known to participate in dances at the C1 level --no gemini, no other square to match, just me dancing, and well enough to keep the square from breaking down.

So where's the trick? It's a lot of little things, I think. Practise, and lots of experience at set dancing is a big one. I can learn new kinds of set dances easier, because I understand the rules and can often recognize the gist of a figure based on similar things I've done. Being flexible is huge, especially about things like what direction you're supposed to be facing (quick spin!) and who's hands you're supposed to be grabbing. There are hints to be picked up from a good or familiar caller, what direction the flow of the dance is moving, whether they have a tendency to re-use certain sequences, that sort of thing. For squares, being aware of your opposite and being able to align yourself with them, quickly and effectively. (unless something interesting happens, you and they should always be symmetric, with respect to a 180degree rotation).

Most importantly, for any dance, the trick is just being able to communicate, and having a set or partner who you trust to lead you true. Be it words, hands, pushes, pulls, points... people will give you signals of where you need to be, and learning how to follow those signals, respond quickly and efficiently, will boost your ability to dance in a noticeable way. There are few things as frustrating to me as a dancer who will not listen when they are told what they need to do, and insist on dithering in the middle of a set, or doing things their own (wrong!) way despite the admonitions of the rest of the group. We all mess up sometimes, but that's why we dance together --so different people can help each other through the calls we find difficult.

Interestingly, the types of communication that help a set guide its individuals to the correct spot are also the types of communication that guide a follow through a convoluted couples dance. Because here's the thing --it's all well and good if the leader knows a complicated bit of choreography, but if they can't communicate what's going on to their follow, then the dance will fall to pieces (just like if a square of seven perfect choreographists have no ability to steer through their new student eighth.) I've had the misfortune to meet leaders who think of themselves as very good (because they know the choreography) but are actually absolutely terrible to dance with. I assure you, I am an excellent follower (and so modest), so it shocked me to find myself unable to keep up with someone who had looked so very good just a few dances before.

Here's the point of this (slightly rambly) entry: Learn the choreography. Learn the calls. Learn the figures. Practise them, and get good at them, and break them down so you can do them cold. But when it comes right down to dancing them, make sure you're doing more for the dance than just following a precise set of movements --because unless you're dancing alone, there's a lot more than choreography to being good at dancing.