Carrillo Recreation Center, Santa Barbara

The View From the Mike

This page is "view" as in "opinion," and you'll find here some mini-essays, pieces with a viewpoint. Naturally I welcome comments. I will add to this page from time to time as I have more ideas to share.

Calling and Baseball
About Those Squares
Some Words about Words

Calling and Baseball

The famous major league pitching coach Ray "Rabbit" Miller is said to have kept a small sign on his office door, for the instruction of rookie pitchers. It read:

Rabbit's Rules

Throw strikes.
Change speeds.
Work fast.

Excellent advice for pitchers -- and, properly interpreted, excellent advice for callers as well.

Throw strikes: Choose dances which are effective for the crowd and the moment. And accomplish what you want with them. In baseball the word 'control' means not simply getting the ball somewhere over the plate, but placing the pitch in the exact spot desired. The calling analogy is to not only choose the right dance, but also to use the dance effectively in the program, and to teach it in the right way for that crowd -- telling them enough, but not too much.

Change speeds: A pitcher can't throw the same pitch all evening, no matter how good it is -- because by the third or fourth trip to the plate, the hitters will be clobbering it. Speed and pitch selection need to vary. In the same way, dancers want a good variety -- of feel, of energy level, of figure. 'Changing speeds' also lets the band display more of its repertoire: nobody (least of all the band members) wants them to have to stay with just "smooth-flowing reels" all night long.

Work fast: People come to dance, not to listen to teaching or commentary. My own rule is that if a figure takes more than a few words, I will just get down on the floor and demonstrate. In pitching, an important benefit of working fast (i.e., taking minimal time between pitches) is that one's own fielders stay more alert and 'in the game'; the same is true in dance, as both the band members and the dancers stay more involved if there is less dead time.

Beyond the wisdom of Rabbit's Rules, baseball offers additional useful guidance to callers. As the famous baseball writer Leonard Koppett pointed out, baseball thinking is very situation-specific: you are not trying to win 'a game,' but "this game, on this field, against this opponent, under these conditions." The same is true of calling: it's not just 'a dance,' but this dance, for this crowd, with this band, in this hall, on this night. And all those factors can affect the choice of material and its presentation. You want dances that are hard enough to entertain these folks, but not so hard as to overwhelm them. You'll teach the same dance differently to different groups. And you'd prefer not to do a distinctive routine that was done at this same hall just last week. (At my home dance, I try always to attend the week before my own calling dates, so I can scout this.)

A fourth well-known pitching rule, not on Rabbit Miller's list: Always remember there are eight other players on the field. Rather than trying to strike everybody out, the pitcher does better to make the batters hit playable balls so the fielders can do their jobs. In the same way the caller needs to remember there's a really good band on that stage, and give them an opportunity to do their best. And the dancers too: like baseball, contra dance is a team effort, in which 'players' with different but complementary roles combine for the group's success.

One set of baseball wisdom for which callers and dancers have no need, however, is Satchel Paige's famous Six Rules on How to Stay Young ("6. Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you.") Contra dancers need just one rule for how to stay young: come dance a lot.

Baseball fans may be curious at this point to know which team I support. I have for some years been a proud fan of the two-time national champion Santa Barbara Foresters of the California Collegiate League (a short-season semi-pro league). No owners, no agents, no salaries, no steroids, and all games played in the afternoon on real grass.

With the marvellous Changeling (Deb, Karl, and Lilly Clair Colon), Columbus, Ohio

About Those Squares

Folks who've danced to my calling more than once have probably noticed that I'm among the dwindling minority of callers who routinely include squares. In fact, starting with the second full evening I ever did, and continuing up until quite recently -- a run of perhaps 175 evenings -- I had at least one square in every program (at public dances).

It's no secret that there are some contra dancers who dislike squares a lot, even to the point of sitting them out and/or complaining when they are called. So why do the squares? Two basic reasons: (1) variety, and (2) many people like them.

In dance, variety is more than the 'spice' of life, it's life's blood. One thing dancing absolutely should not be is boring, and to feel you did the same dance all evening is boring. Apart from the simple fact that they're done in a different formation, squares introduce variety in three ways. Most obviously, you can do figures not possible in a contra set. Perhaps less obvious, the style of calling is entirely different: whereas in contras the caller is trying to fade out as soon as possible, in squares the dancers are following the caller the whole way through, and parts of the dance -- the 'break' figures -- are not walked through. And third -- perhaps least obvious -- the band has a chance to play "crooked" tunes which you may not hear otherwise. It's a treat to dance to wonderful tunes like "Hangman's Reel" or "Ways of the World," utterly unusable for contras, but perfect for many squares. So I think the case for squares adding variety is indisputable, and even the dancers I've talked with who say they dislike squares have conceded this point.

Oddfellows Hall, San Luis Obispo

I also think it's clear that 'many people like' squares. Partly this is because numerous dancers have come up and told me so. But beyond that, there is that simplest device, the applause meter: my experience is that squares generally rate at or near the top. Obviously the proportion of people who like, dislike, or are indifferent to squares will vary from group to group. If I'm calling in a new location, I will try one during the first half, and the reaction to that (which I may spot-check by asking around during the break) will tell me whether to do another.

While I have done squares pretty much 'since the beginning,' one thing I have definitely changed over the years is the type of squares I do. Like most contra dance callers who attempt squares, I got started on New England quadrille figures, which are relatively easy to learn and call. These figures almost always include a partner change, with the second half of the figure being to find and swing your new partner and then promenade to somebody's home.

I have now almost entirely abandoned the quadrilles in favor of Fifties and other fast-moving figures which do not include partner changes and which keep almost all the dancers moving, almost all the time. This mitigates two of the basic criticisms often voiced against squares, which are that you have to leave your partner -- who is, after all, the person you wanted to dance with -- and that there's too much standing around. (The remaining criticism, which is that you don't get to dance with enough different people, is unanswerable: there are only seven other people in the square. Well, not quite unanswerable: I sometimes do Appalachian big circle figures in a roomful of scattered couples, a trick I learned from the great Bob Dalsemer.)

Early on I was deluded into thinking that the quadrille figures would probably be more acceptable to contra dancers because their 'feel' is very much like a contra dance. I have found that actually the reverse is true: the squares which are very much unlike contra dances get a better reception. (Think Grapevine Twist, for example.) Not so surprising, when you think about it: if we're going to do something that smells and feels like a contra, why don't we just do a contra and save everybody a lot of trouble?

One thing I am absolutely not doing with squares is pursuing some agenda to "preserve" a dance form at the cost of the dancers' fun. We come to this activity for fun, and I continue to include squares because I continue to believe it's more fun that way. If the bulk of the dancers, or the dance organizers, at a particular series voice a contrary preference -- and this has happened -- then I leave them out. The dance belongs to the dancers and not to me; I never forget that. See you on the floor -- and I hope and trust you'll enjoy the squares!

Some Words About Words

It's a truism that every contra dance caller needs to find his or her own well-chosen words to present a given dance. This applies both to calls and teaching. No caller worthy of the mike would simply copy someone else's exact wording: you need to take a dance and make it your own.

Accordingly it struck me as odd, some years ago, to read a statement attributed to the famous caller Larry Edelman, where he noted that in learning squares, it was important to learn not just the moves, but the actual words used. (I'm paraphrasing from memory here, and no longer have the original, so forgive me if something's been lost in transcription.) But after more years of experience, I think Larry is exactly right.

Oddfellows Hall, San Luis Obispo

Contra dances are lists of moves. Ask me how my own dance 'Fiddler of Dooney' goes, and I will tell you, "Swing neighbor, ladies chain across, then on the diagonal..." (click here for the full story). It's a list of moves, and I leave it to you to make it come to life with words.

But ask me how a square dance goes -- say the famous dance 'Star Line' by Ed Gilmore -- and I will answer, "Up to the middle and back to the bar, with the ones across do a right hand star, go three quarters of the way, heads in the center for a left hand star..." (Best if we have room to walk it at the same time!) You can reconstruct the moves from this, but that it not how I remember it: I remember it as a lyric.

With contra dances I remember the list and have to construct suitable words each time I want to call it (words which may be different for different groups). With the squares I remember the lyric and have to deconstruct the list and teaching points. The teaching points will vary from one group to the next, but the lyric, once the music starts going, generally will not.

I am not claiming all callers do this, of course; merely observing that this is what works for me. (New England callers should note that the squares I am discussing here are Fifties and Appalachian figures, not New England quadrilles which would be called more like contra dances.)

In a sense what we have here is the distinction between speech and song. A good speaker stands up before the audience not with a memorized text, but with a list of points he/she wants to make. The actual wording is done 'in the moment' and follows what the speaker senses from the audience. This makes the presentation lively, in contrast to hearing someone read a written text, which is deadly dull.

Songs, on the the other hand, are sung from a memorized lyric and are not improvised, or not much. The life and variety come from the interaction with the music.

And this may be what lies behind Larry Edelman's observation. Calling a square is a lot more like singing than is calling a contra dance. Of course a contra caller can shape his/her delivery to the music, like chanting. But it's still quite different from calling squares: the caller is still trying to fade out and let the dancers just dance to the music, which the square dance caller does not do. With squares the caller remains a fellow performer with the band throughout, as a singer would be.

Note, I'm not suggesting that the way to call a square is to copy someone else's lyric: in fact, the one I presented above for Star Line is my own, and the times I've heard others call it, they have used different words. But I do think a natural way to remember and get a grasp of squares is as a lyric.

Speech or song, take your pick: both fun in their own way, just not the same.