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Today in Triangles
This year, I'm going to be a staff square caller at DC Lambda Squares' Harvest Festival Hoedown. Sure, I'm the part-timer and junior caller, but it's a start and I'm delighted & incredibly honored to be asked to participate.
One of the questions I was asked by the event chair is if I had any particular specialty or gimmick which they could highlight in the schedule or promotional materials. My response: I will by November. :-)
I began working on a particular project across the Memorial Day weekend while we were vacationing at the trailer in West Virginia: triangles. Clark Baker and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
billeyler have carved a space for themselves in the calling world with their different flavours of hexagons; being able to work with triangles as a subset of hexagons should (a) allow me to work with a smaller number of dancers, and (b) piggyback somewhat on the work & theory Clark and Bill have already done because, as someone pointed out, triangles could be thought of as "heads-only" out of a hexagon.
To start, I separated the Mainstream (and later the Plus) square dance call list into three groups: calls which aren't sensible/possible in triangles (eg. anything requiring eight dancers), calls which can be done with trivial modifications (eg. right & left grand shortened to three hands instead of four) and calls which need no re-interpretation at all (eg. partner trade, single hinge, courtesy turn, etc.).
Borrowing from hexagon theory, one is must adjust some calls to smaller versions of the original. Where a flutterwheel normally sends a belle 1/2 across the square to meet a new beau and escort him 1/2 back across the square again, the triangle belle would go only 1/3 across then take her new beau 1/3 more. A triangle scoot back doesn't do a full turn to one's original partner but instead 2/3 around the set to a new partner. In nearly every call, the dancers need to "underachieve," going 1/3 or 2/3 rather than 1/2 or full turns.
Mapping out the circulate patterns is pretty intuitive for the caller & dancers. Seeing one's corner as being effectively one's opposite is not intuitive but dancers will accept it as a necessary variant from standard squares.
This afternoon, we had a calling workshop at our home with ten dancers (includingcaller_dayle) to practise various projects. kent4str wanted to test his selected C1 material before taking it to the IAGSDC convention in Chicago as well as sight-call some Advanced; I wanted to see if my triangle test figures worked as well on humans as they do on paper.
On the whole, things worked pretty well. I have a few figures which stumbled but I can recode them for clarity. The Mainstream list of available calls for triangles was pretty slight: I think the dancers didn't really get into it until I upped the ante to include Plus calls (diamonds, chase right, trade the wave, etc.). Even so, we all agreed triangles alone would be a tedious hour by themselves at a fly-in.
Based on today's early successes, I'm going to propose an hour at the fly-in to be called "Non-Square Squares," offering a smattering of triangles, hexagons, three couple dancing (say, a single head & two sides), six couple dancing (two couples at each head position and a single couple at each side) and such. I'm sure I can keep it entertaining without being too mind-bending if I spend no more than 15-20 minutes on each variant, including the teaching portion.
Which means I have a lot more writing & testing to do between now and November.
One of the questions I was asked by the event chair is if I had any particular specialty or gimmick which they could highlight in the schedule or promotional materials. My response: I will by November. :-)
I began working on a particular project across the Memorial Day weekend while we were vacationing at the trailer in West Virginia: triangles. Clark Baker and
billeyler have carved a space for themselves in the calling world with their different flavours of hexagons; being able to work with triangles as a subset of hexagons should (a) allow me to work with a smaller number of dancers, and (b) piggyback somewhat on the work & theory Clark and Bill have already done because, as someone pointed out, triangles could be thought of as "heads-only" out of a hexagon.To start, I separated the Mainstream (and later the Plus) square dance call list into three groups: calls which aren't sensible/possible in triangles (eg. anything requiring eight dancers), calls which can be done with trivial modifications (eg. right & left grand shortened to three hands instead of four) and calls which need no re-interpretation at all (eg. partner trade, single hinge, courtesy turn, etc.).
Borrowing from hexagon theory, one is must adjust some calls to smaller versions of the original. Where a flutterwheel normally sends a belle 1/2 across the square to meet a new beau and escort him 1/2 back across the square again, the triangle belle would go only 1/3 across then take her new beau 1/3 more. A triangle scoot back doesn't do a full turn to one's original partner but instead 2/3 around the set to a new partner. In nearly every call, the dancers need to "underachieve," going 1/3 or 2/3 rather than 1/2 or full turns.
Mapping out the circulate patterns is pretty intuitive for the caller & dancers. Seeing one's corner as being effectively one's opposite is not intuitive but dancers will accept it as a necessary variant from standard squares.
This afternoon, we had a calling workshop at our home with ten dancers (including
caller_dayle) to practise various projects. kent4str wanted to test his selected C1 material before taking it to the IAGSDC convention in Chicago as well as sight-call some Advanced; I wanted to see if my triangle test figures worked as well on humans as they do on paper.On the whole, things worked pretty well. I have a few figures which stumbled but I can recode them for clarity. The Mainstream list of available calls for triangles was pretty slight: I think the dancers didn't really get into it until I upped the ante to include Plus calls (diamonds, chase right, trade the wave, etc.). Even so, we all agreed triangles alone would be a tedious hour by themselves at a fly-in.
Based on today's early successes, I'm going to propose an hour at the fly-in to be called "Non-Square Squares," offering a smattering of triangles, hexagons, three couple dancing (say, a single head & two sides), six couple dancing (two couples at each head position and a single couple at each side) and such. I'm sure I can keep it entertaining without being too mind-bending if I spend no more than 15-20 minutes on each variant, including the teaching portion.
Which means I have a lot more writing & testing to do between now and November.
no subject
Also, if you have an hour scheduled to play with these new toys (for you), remember that some dancers tend to wander in and out at different times during the hour, so unless you lock the gates on the top of the hour, there WILL be review for any newer newbies that fall into the lair!
no subject
I expect folks will wander in & out during each hour... I've witnessed it enough times in the "intro to" hours when people stagger in for the final tip having missed all of the necessary early work.
At the moment, I'm planning an hour composed of a small block of triangles, a small block of six couple dancing (two in each head position, one in each side) and a closer of three couple dancing (one head, two sides). Each one will be sufficiently different from the rest to keep dancers from the start, but each one provides an opportunity for new arrivals to join in without prior knowledge.
Of course, we all know how our dance plans generally survive contact with reality... :-)
no subject