Erik Hoffman     

Old Time Music and Dance

From my book, Old-Time Dance Calling for Weddings, Parties, and One-Night Stands.

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Table of Contents

Introduction
First: A Couple of Rules
Expectations
Diving In
Pre-Dance Connecting
The Contract
On To The Gig
A Dance Program:
    The First Dance
     The (Simple) Virginia Reel
     Old Time Square Dance Figures
     Blobs/OXO
     The Waltz
     The (Simple) Family Waltz
     Zodiac – Singing Games
     Sasha
     Simple Squares
     Grapevine Twist
     Texas Star
     Some Simple Contras
     Jefferson and Liberty
     Made Up Tonight (which is no longer true)
     Making Up Dances
     Baba Yaga's Maggot
     Adapting Dances
Take Charge by Honoring the Participants, or Have Tricks up your Sleeve
An Annotated Bibliography

From the book, The Introduction:

So you're invited to call a special dance, an occasional dance for a special event. These include parties, weddings, corporate events, birthdays, adults only, lots of kids, drunks, anything. What sets these apart from regular series dances is that they are one-time events, often for non-dancers.

It's ironic. In some ways calling these kinds of dances is one of the more challenging jobs we callers get, but it's often the very first sort of gig we get. Most of us nascent callers are out looking for gigs, and the local dance series doesn't offer much because they want those "experienced callers." However, your son's school wants a barn dance, or a friend wants some dances called at her wedding, and you've got a gig – calling for rank beginners. Luckily, there are ways these calling gigs are also easy.

The thing that makes them easy is the very thing that makes it hard: those rank beginners have no experience, they don't know anything (or much). The "easy" comes from the facts that 1) beginners don't know anything, so whatever you show them will be new and fun and 2) (most of the time) everyone is expecting a good time, so beginners are very forgiving. The thing that makes it a challenge is that the need for teaching is greater. To this end, we callers start collecting and calling beginner-friendly dances. Most, if not all, of these dances are not suited for a group of seasoned contra dancers. We who go regularly to a contra dance are familiar with the form and flow. But, though these dances are beginner friendly, they are not beginner dances - they are fun dances! Yes, Fun Dances for All.

So here I submit a little treatise to outline the way I've come to approach this kind of gig – thoughts and dances I've learned to make work - and to start a discussion. I mean, everything I say is gospel truth, no? If you do something different and it works, great! Share it with me; I'd love to know. If you think I'm up the creek, tell me, I'd love to discuss it. Now, setting it in stone... Well ink, anyway.