Anaheim, Day #3

After participating in this year's caller school (as a checker rather than caller), I'm very, very glad I'm not running for the VP position.

No doubt, there is much work involved in running the event, but the bulk of it is done in advance:  once the school is in operation, it's largely a matter of answering student questions, satisfying instructor needs and dealing with unanticipated issues (excessive noise from neighbouring unrelated halls, faulty floor tiles, balky sound systems, etc.).

Above & beyond this, there's a lot of material to schlep to & from the event, including all of the instructional materials (presuming they're not reproduced on-site), the inventory of vinyl to trade & share, extra power bars for various laptops and such.  And there's the issue of feeding the masses.  This year, there wasn't a provided lunch but the GCA did provide a pizza & chicken wing dinner one night and organized an outing to a nearby restaurant (on our own tab for that one).

Still, the largest portion of some very long days is simply spent trying to stay awake at the information/registration desk.  Seriously boring.  I hope the next person to take the job remembers to pack a few good books.

The contrast between caller instructors is notable.  Mike DeSisto spent a bulk of Tuesday's class reiterating the value of filler words to establish verbal flow.  Anne Uebelacker spent the larger portion of this morning metaphorically beating it out of the students:  calls only, thank you very much.  At ACDC 2006 earlier this year, Ben Rubright went on a five minute almost-angry rant on-mic about how there is absolutely no such concept as "active dancers" or "active couples" in square dancing.  Anne & Barry Clasper both contradicted this position in today's session.

I find the (quite trivial) conflict of opinion to be quite refreshing.  It's nice to be reminded that even the Gods of Calling are human, have differences of opinion and while they can rationalize their position, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're right.  In effect, it gives me license to have opinions of my own --presuming I have some justification for whatever position I might take.

The morning session with Anne Uebelacker & Barry Clasper was spent working on flow & timing.  Each caller was asked to call 3-4 figures of patter with the intent of making the dancing as smooth as possible.  The callers were then asked to face the back wall and call the same material, using their own sense of timing for the calling rather than looking at the dancers.  All were better callers *not* looking at the dancers... go figure.

In the afternoon session, the class did team calling:  four callers were put on mic together to do a joint singing call.  Each caller brought up one favourite record which was handed to Anne; she would then put it on for them to use and the callers would be required to coordinate on the fly who would do which figure and how they would do the lyrics.  The performances were ashtoningly good, esp. in light of the lack of advanced preparation.

Anaheim, Day #3

After participating in this year's caller school (as a checker rather than caller), I'm very, very glad I'm not running for the VP position.

No doubt, there is much work involved in running the event, but the bulk of it is done in advance:  once the school is in operation, it's largely a matter of answering student questions, satisfying instructor needs and dealing with unanticipated issues (excessive noise from neighbouring unrelated halls, faulty floor tiles, balky sound systems, etc.).

Above & beyond this, there's a lot of material to schlep to & from the event, including all of the instructional materials (presuming they're not reproduced on-site), the inventory of vinyl to trade & share, extra power bars for various laptops and such.  And there's the issue of feeding the masses.  This year, there wasn't a provided lunch but the GCA did provide a pizza & chicken wing dinner one night and organized an outing to a nearby restaurant (on our own tab for that one).

Still, the largest portion of some very long days is simply spent trying to stay awake at the information/registration desk.  Seriously boring.  I hope the next person to take the job remembers to pack a few good books.

The contrast between caller instructors is notable.  Mike DeSisto spent a bulk of Tuesday's class reiterating the value of filler words to establish verbal flow.  Anne Uebelacker spent the larger portion of this morning metaphorically beating it out of the students:  calls only, thank you very much.  At ACDC 2006 earlier this year, Ben Rubright went on a five minute almost-angry rant on-mic about how there is absolutely no such concept as "active dancers" or "active couples" in square dancing.  Anne & Barry Clasper both contradicted this position in today's session.

I find the (quite trivial) conflict of opinion to be quite refreshing.  It's nice to be reminded that even the Gods of Calling are human, have differences of opinion and while they can rationalize their position, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're right.  In effect, it gives me license to have opinions of my own --presuming I have some justification for whatever position I might take.

The morning session with Anne Uebelacker & Barry Clasper was spent working on flow & timing.  Each caller was asked to call 3-4 figures of patter with the intent of making the dancing as smooth as possible.  The callers were then asked to face the back wall and call the same material, using their own sense of timing for the calling rather than looking at the dancers.  All were better callers *not* looking at the dancers... go figure.

In the afternoon session, the class did team calling:  four callers were put on mic together to do a joint singing call.  Each caller brought up one favourite record which was handed to Anne; she would then put it on for them to use and the callers would be required to coordinate on the fly who would do which figure and how they would do the lyrics.  The performances were ashtoningly good, esp. in light of the lack of advanced preparation.