Harvest Festival Hoedown 16!
Nov. 15th, 2010 03:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bjarvisDC Lambda Squares' Harvest Festival Hoedown weekend has come & gone yet again, this the 16th annual fall fly-in weekend. It was enormous fun and a great success, IMHO! For those who missed it, we had Deborah Carroll-Jones, Barry Clasper, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
caller_dayle) and myself as staff callers. This was our first year at the Yorktowne Hotel in York, PA, a dance space known well to those who dance regularly at John Marshall's dance weekends & workshops and the Harvest Moon Festival.
I'm personally delighted with how many of our newest Mainstream class graduates attended, and even happier with how well they danced at their square dance debut. I taught two out of the four classes which covered the Mainstream list so I had some personal & professional interest in ensuring they were ready for this dance and that they had a good time doing so. Sure, they were a little hesitant on the floor at first but all were dancing with vastly faster reaction times, greater confidence and even extra flourishes by Saturday afternoon. There is an additional workshop this coming Saturday so I hope they're bringing a list of things they'd like to revisit.
I don't have the official statistics but I know we had over 100 dancers attending the weekend. Looking at the hourly room statistics, our dancers were definitely weighted heavily to the Plus & Advanced level: the C1 and C2 blocks never had more than two squares, the Mainstream hall had to sometimes struggle for a single square if there was a Plus hall running opposite, and the Advanced hall could have as many as four squares if there was no C1 dancing to siphon off the upper level dancers.
The "intro to" sessions weren't as popular as I thought they'd be. We had only one square each for "intro to C1" and "intro to Plus," two for "intro to Advanced" and --surprisingly-- "intro to C2". Go figure. By contrast, I called to four squares for the Advanced workshop; Deborah had six for her Plus workshop while Dayle & Barry each had two squares for their Mainstream and C1 workshops respectively and a single square for the C2 workshop (which I couldn't attend 'cause it was opposite my Advanced workshop hour... bummer!).
This was my first fly-in where I was a staff caller. Lest my head swell to unreasonable proportions, I will remind myself that I was a part-time caller, not a full timer. This largely meant I was busy nearly all of Saturday but had my Friday evening and Sunday morning free. There are only six hours total of calling time separating the full-time staffers from the part-timer though, and I'm confident I'll be ready when called upon to take a full-time spot.
I've had a lot of experience of the past number of years calling Mainstream, Plus and Advanced, with significant experience calling C1. Teaching and conducting workshops is something I've done a lot lately as well. In short, despite my mild anxiety about this personal leap forward, I was ready & capable for all of the tasks assigned to me.
The part which caused me the most stress was the all-caller joint calling sessions, aka the cluster-sing. I don't recall doing this outside of one or two caller schools years ago and even then, it was just with other would-be callers, not sharing a stage with Big Names of the square dance culture. How do the Big Wheels in this field negotiate which numbers to share? How to do they arrange their team? In what order do they sing their figures? While these are trivial matters for normal people, I'm a process & project plan freak: these very questions are the ones which figure most prominently not only in my square dancing life but my personal life and my professional life as a geek. In short, a cluster-sing situation hammers damn near all of my professionalism buttons simultaneously.
Good news: as with most things in life, reality is far better than my mental worst-case fears or anxiety. Sure, I was anxious butcaller_dayle, Deborah and Barry are old pros at the festival circuit and have handled situations like this many, many times before. They deftly guided the discussion about which laptop to use, which patter & singers we could all easily call to, the order of figures for the singing calls, which pairings of callers would ensure all got equal participation time throughout the event dance session, etc.. It was a like a dream office meeting where every participant shows up on time, knows exactly what needs to be done, agrees to the task list without drama or angst and adjourns to get on with the show within five minutes. Sure, they were being easy on me because I was the newbie but now that I've been in the process up close, I'll be an even stronger participant next time.
The Saturday evening all-skate was lots of fun. We opened with a joint number of all four of us. My extemporaneous patter was fine --keep it simple, keep them moving, go for easy success of the floor and save the challenging stuff for Saturday's regular sessions-- and my singing figures were solid & well-timed. Through the evening, I had duets with each of the other callers. While a patter figure or two occasionally went south, I make a quick joke about it, got them moving again and dismissed it from my mind. Certainly I wasn't the only one who occasionally flubbed a figure: all of us missed one or two at some point across the day. I'm just delighted my singing figures worked well as those are much harder to recover.
And naturally, the other staffers were nothing but supportive and enthusiastic.caller_dayle has invested heaven knows how many hours in my professional development. Both Barry and Deborah have been coaches at caller schools I've attended. Each one has provided advice and encouragement verbally, via email, here on LJ or in FaceBook. I've had drinks and dinners with all of them (and spouses) across the years. A caller's success isn't just the success of his/her dancers, but also that of his/her newbie callers.
I got lots of supportive comments from the dancers... feedback from the floor (too hard, too easy, too slow, too fast, great calling, wtf was that, etc.) is always a useful thing. I've heard through the grapevine that some other regional clubs now have me on their radar for possible future gigs --hopefully more fly-ins but I'd be happy with weekend dances, club nights & workshops to build up my resume and market myself further.
In the interim, I know I need to work to push myself on various fronts to add polish. I memorized a stack of new get-outs for various levels for this weekend and I need to continue that, as well as add more singing call figures. My extemporaneous Advanced calling is competent and flowing but I recognize I'm using Advanced more like an extension of Plus rather than taking full advantage of some of the concepts and modifiers available at that level. (My written A2 choreo takes full advantage of the level but I'd rather sight-call than read.) The next time we have a caller workshop chez nous, I'd like to have a group-calling session as part of the day.
caller_dayle) and myself as staff callers. This was our first year at the Yorktowne Hotel in York, PA, a dance space known well to those who dance regularly at John Marshall's dance weekends & workshops and the Harvest Moon Festival.I'm personally delighted with how many of our newest Mainstream class graduates attended, and even happier with how well they danced at their square dance debut. I taught two out of the four classes which covered the Mainstream list so I had some personal & professional interest in ensuring they were ready for this dance and that they had a good time doing so. Sure, they were a little hesitant on the floor at first but all were dancing with vastly faster reaction times, greater confidence and even extra flourishes by Saturday afternoon. There is an additional workshop this coming Saturday so I hope they're bringing a list of things they'd like to revisit.
I don't have the official statistics but I know we had over 100 dancers attending the weekend. Looking at the hourly room statistics, our dancers were definitely weighted heavily to the Plus & Advanced level: the C1 and C2 blocks never had more than two squares, the Mainstream hall had to sometimes struggle for a single square if there was a Plus hall running opposite, and the Advanced hall could have as many as four squares if there was no C1 dancing to siphon off the upper level dancers.
The "intro to" sessions weren't as popular as I thought they'd be. We had only one square each for "intro to C1" and "intro to Plus," two for "intro to Advanced" and --surprisingly-- "intro to C2". Go figure. By contrast, I called to four squares for the Advanced workshop; Deborah had six for her Plus workshop while Dayle & Barry each had two squares for their Mainstream and C1 workshops respectively and a single square for the C2 workshop (which I couldn't attend 'cause it was opposite my Advanced workshop hour... bummer!).
This was my first fly-in where I was a staff caller. Lest my head swell to unreasonable proportions, I will remind myself that I was a part-time caller, not a full timer. This largely meant I was busy nearly all of Saturday but had my Friday evening and Sunday morning free. There are only six hours total of calling time separating the full-time staffers from the part-timer though, and I'm confident I'll be ready when called upon to take a full-time spot.
I've had a lot of experience of the past number of years calling Mainstream, Plus and Advanced, with significant experience calling C1. Teaching and conducting workshops is something I've done a lot lately as well. In short, despite my mild anxiety about this personal leap forward, I was ready & capable for all of the tasks assigned to me.
The part which caused me the most stress was the all-caller joint calling sessions, aka the cluster-sing. I don't recall doing this outside of one or two caller schools years ago and even then, it was just with other would-be callers, not sharing a stage with Big Names of the square dance culture. How do the Big Wheels in this field negotiate which numbers to share? How to do they arrange their team? In what order do they sing their figures? While these are trivial matters for normal people, I'm a process & project plan freak: these very questions are the ones which figure most prominently not only in my square dancing life but my personal life and my professional life as a geek. In short, a cluster-sing situation hammers damn near all of my professionalism buttons simultaneously.
Good news: as with most things in life, reality is far better than my mental worst-case fears or anxiety. Sure, I was anxious but
caller_dayle, Deborah and Barry are old pros at the festival circuit and have handled situations like this many, many times before. They deftly guided the discussion about which laptop to use, which patter & singers we could all easily call to, the order of figures for the singing calls, which pairings of callers would ensure all got equal participation time throughout the event dance session, etc.. It was a like a dream office meeting where every participant shows up on time, knows exactly what needs to be done, agrees to the task list without drama or angst and adjourns to get on with the show within five minutes. Sure, they were being easy on me because I was the newbie but now that I've been in the process up close, I'll be an even stronger participant next time.The Saturday evening all-skate was lots of fun. We opened with a joint number of all four of us. My extemporaneous patter was fine --keep it simple, keep them moving, go for easy success of the floor and save the challenging stuff for Saturday's regular sessions-- and my singing figures were solid & well-timed. Through the evening, I had duets with each of the other callers. While a patter figure or two occasionally went south, I make a quick joke about it, got them moving again and dismissed it from my mind. Certainly I wasn't the only one who occasionally flubbed a figure: all of us missed one or two at some point across the day. I'm just delighted my singing figures worked well as those are much harder to recover.
And naturally, the other staffers were nothing but supportive and enthusiastic.
caller_dayle has invested heaven knows how many hours in my professional development. Both Barry and Deborah have been coaches at caller schools I've attended. Each one has provided advice and encouragement verbally, via email, here on LJ or in FaceBook. I've had drinks and dinners with all of them (and spouses) across the years. A caller's success isn't just the success of his/her dancers, but also that of his/her newbie callers.I got lots of supportive comments from the dancers... feedback from the floor (too hard, too easy, too slow, too fast, great calling, wtf was that, etc.) is always a useful thing. I've heard through the grapevine that some other regional clubs now have me on their radar for possible future gigs --hopefully more fly-ins but I'd be happy with weekend dances, club nights & workshops to build up my resume and market myself further.
In the interim, I know I need to work to push myself on various fronts to add polish. I memorized a stack of new get-outs for various levels for this weekend and I need to continue that, as well as add more singing call figures. My extemporaneous Advanced calling is competent and flowing but I recognize I'm using Advanced more like an extension of Plus rather than taking full advantage of some of the concepts and modifiers available at that level. (My written A2 choreo takes full advantage of the level but I'd rather sight-call than read.) The next time we have a caller workshop chez nous, I'd like to have a group-calling session as part of the day.
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no subject
Date: 2010-11-15 08:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-15 10:16 pm (UTC)Danny asked my just yesterday why he thought I wasn't getting booked for flyins much anymore. I said that one key factor was there are SO MANY FREAKIN' GOOD CALLERS out there nowadays! :-)
Like Chip said, "You go!"
no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 05:30 pm (UTC)You were given the chance to be a staff caller this weekend because people feel you're ready for that next step - and you not only lived up to expectations but exceeded them wonderfully. You did a great job with the Big Names - and belonged on that stage with them.
One suggestion for the next step - find a good vocal coach and work with them regularly for a while. You have a very nice voice - both for patter and when singing and you're now ready to learn how to take care of it and to use it to its maximum potential.
The weekend was a blast!