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Baltimore square dancing
Nov. 22nd, 2006 09:25 amI had a great time calling in Baltimore for the Chesapeake Squares' regular club night last night. Getting there, however...
There was some sort of accident on I95 northbound in the peak of the evening rush hour. I left home around 7 PM; the accident had been removed prior but the backup of traffic was still there. Thank god Nick M. carpooled with me last night: conversation with him kept me sane in an otherwise frustrating experience. Thank god as well for cell phone technology: I was able to call ahead to warn that I'd be late but that I was indeed on my way.
A 7 PM departure from home typically means being entirely set up at the hall by 7:45 PM, enough time to relax before starting the dance at 8. This time, I arrived at 8:10 PM and frantically set up the calling equipment. I'm grateful the other dancers noticed my car arriving and were already queued up to help haul in the toys and set up the table.
In all, we had enough for about 1.5 squares and not quite enough dancers for an A2 square so we danced Mainstream and Plus all evening. Two of the Mainstream folks were recent grads so they were a little rusty but were dancing smoothly by the end of the evening. My perception is that I was in good form all evening, despite the traffic issues: no major screwups, breaks were kept somewhat short (but not too short), the patter didn't go over long and the singing calls were pretty good. In short, I'm declaring the evening a success from my caller perspective; I'll leave it to the dancers to say what it looked like from the dance floor.
Upcoming gigs: Kent is calling next Tuesday's Chesapeake Squares' club night; we'll both be teaching next Monday's DC Lambda Squares Mainstream class. We're on the list for consideration for calling one of DCLS' monthly community dances in the 2007-8 dance season as well. Yay!
There was some sort of accident on I95 northbound in the peak of the evening rush hour. I left home around 7 PM; the accident had been removed prior but the backup of traffic was still there. Thank god Nick M. carpooled with me last night: conversation with him kept me sane in an otherwise frustrating experience. Thank god as well for cell phone technology: I was able to call ahead to warn that I'd be late but that I was indeed on my way.
A 7 PM departure from home typically means being entirely set up at the hall by 7:45 PM, enough time to relax before starting the dance at 8. This time, I arrived at 8:10 PM and frantically set up the calling equipment. I'm grateful the other dancers noticed my car arriving and were already queued up to help haul in the toys and set up the table.
In all, we had enough for about 1.5 squares and not quite enough dancers for an A2 square so we danced Mainstream and Plus all evening. Two of the Mainstream folks were recent grads so they were a little rusty but were dancing smoothly by the end of the evening. My perception is that I was in good form all evening, despite the traffic issues: no major screwups, breaks were kept somewhat short (but not too short), the patter didn't go over long and the singing calls were pretty good. In short, I'm declaring the evening a success from my caller perspective; I'll leave it to the dancers to say what it looked like from the dance floor.
Upcoming gigs: Kent is calling next Tuesday's Chesapeake Squares' club night; we'll both be teaching next Monday's DC Lambda Squares Mainstream class. We're on the list for consideration for calling one of DCLS' monthly community dances in the 2007-8 dance season as well. Yay!
