This Week in Square Dancing

Monday's C2 class with John Marshall went pretty well. All three of us --cuyahogarvr, kent4str and myself-- were present, thus disproving the rumours that cuyahogarvr had offed either of us despite plenty of temptation to do so periodically.

As well as reviewing prior material, we learned 'hocus pocus,' 'along' and 'checkpoint.' All three squares did pretty well although the center six part of 'along' was causing headaches for some: John described it as a 'grand peel the top' which many --myself included-- didn't grok. The official CALLERLAB definition says the #1 dancer in the column peels while #2 and #3 step forward and trade with their counterparts on the other column, a definition which works vastly better in my already-crowded head.

Last night, kent4str was feeling a little off so we left him at home but cuyahogarvr and I had fun with with Bill Harrison's C1 dance in Columbia, MD. I haven't figured out yet if he was being exceptionally gentle or if we're getting more confident but I didn't find the evening to be as mind-bending as his prior dances have been. Sure, we stumbled periodically but on the whole we were pretty successful on the floor. Yay!

I'm working currently on transcribing the C1 calling I recorded this past weekend at the Harvest Festival Hoedown. Much typing is in my near future.

There's no dancing tonight and caller_dayle is calling for the DC Lambda Squares Thursday so we may take that evening off too. Technically, there's a Harvest Festival Hoedown post-mortem but I need the space from fly-in activities at the moment so I'm going to pass on that. Besides, it's my mother's birthday so I have to make the obligatory telephone call in the mid-evening. We have Friday off too but I should write more A2 choreo for my next Zig Zaggers gig on Nov 21.

Saturday, we're hosting the monthly committee meeting of DC Diamond Circulate. We need to get some shopping done to have some hors d'oeuvres to serve.

This Week in Square Dancing

Monday's C2 class with John Marshall went pretty well. All three of us --cuyahogarvr, kent4str and myself-- were present, thus disproving the rumours that cuyahogarvr had offed either of us despite plenty of temptation to do so periodically.

As well as reviewing prior material, we learned 'hocus pocus,' 'along' and 'checkpoint.' All three squares did pretty well although the center six part of 'along' was causing headaches for some: John described it as a 'grand peel the top' which many --myself included-- didn't grok. The official CALLERLAB definition says the #1 dancer in the column peels while #2 and #3 step forward and trade with their counterparts on the other column, a definition which works vastly better in my already-crowded head.

Last night, kent4str was feeling a little off so we left him at home but cuyahogarvr and I had fun with with Bill Harrison's C1 dance in Columbia, MD. I haven't figured out yet if he was being exceptionally gentle or if we're getting more confident but I didn't find the evening to be as mind-bending as his prior dances have been. Sure, we stumbled periodically but on the whole we were pretty successful on the floor. Yay!

I'm working currently on transcribing the C1 calling I recorded this past weekend at the Harvest Festival Hoedown. Much typing is in my near future.

There's no dancing tonight and caller_dayle is calling for the DC Lambda Squares Thursday so we may take that evening off too. Technically, there's a Harvest Festival Hoedown post-mortem but I need the space from fly-in activities at the moment so I'm going to pass on that. Besides, it's my mother's birthday so I have to make the obligatory telephone call in the mid-evening. We have Friday off too but I should write more A2 choreo for my next Zig Zaggers gig on Nov 21.

Saturday, we're hosting the monthly committee meeting of DC Diamond Circulate. We need to get some shopping done to have some hors d'oeuvres to serve.

In the Center of a Circular Firing Square

We have a DC Diamond Circulate convention meeting coming up this Saturday, preparing for the IAGSDC's 26th annual convention next April in Washington, DC.

The biggest headache? California Prop 8.

Our contracted hotel is the Marriott Wardman Park. I've received a number of rather vicious emails in the past week, along with two threats to organize boycotts of the DC convention if we don't instantly sever all contacts with Marriott and move the convention elsewhere.

For the most part, I'm ignoring the emails: reasoning with individuals in so much anger & pain would be fruitless. We signed the hotel contract in June, 2006, long before Californian LGBT folks had any right to marry. Cancelling the hotel contract would cost $305,950 in penalties, bankrupting the convention instantly, even presuming we could find another hotel to host the event on such short notice. That's one of the problems with planning events so far into the future: no one can predict what will happen 2-3 years down the line or how some unrelated event on the far side of the continent will throw the entire enterprise into turmoil.

I understand the anger, but I offer that focusing that anger into destroying a gay dance convention and causing devastating damage to an east coast gay square dance club and the international association of gay square dance clubs isn't going to win back marriage rights. Washington-area gay square dancers aren't the enemy.

Locally, I'm recommending my committee be patient so the anger may fade sufficiently that the larger community can devise a strategy to target the right people instead of hurting our own in the crossfire.

Still, I'm a little worried: even without a formal boycott, if too many folks decide they're going to stay anywhere but the Marriott, we may be hit with large non-performance penalties. We need 80% occupancy to get the negotiated freebies and discounts, including the dance rooms, refreshments at the meetings, water in the dance halls and much more. Not making the magic 80% rate would be very painful.