Square Dance Calling Musings
2024-02-09 18:26:38.888246+01 by Dan Lyke 2 comments
Fun night filling in for Gary Kendall at the Clutch Busters over in Concord last night, two or three squares (red light/green light) but as I got back home I realized... Conservatively, I loaded the car at, say, quarter after five yesterday, and left at 5:30, because Google gave a wide variety of arrival times. Got home at quarter to 11. Called from 7:30 to 9:30, but five and a half hours out of the house, ignoring any coordination and prep time and whatnot. 60 miles each way, so using IRS numbers, about $80 in mileage. Paid $120, so that leaves $40 to distribute between music licensing, music, gear depreciation, voice lessons, and... me. So including drive time, seven and a quarter an hour, before all of those other costs...
While I was driving, Eric Henerlau called, and we talked about how we need more callers in our area or this activity is going to drop below the critical mass threshold for lack of callers before it drops for lack of dancers.
Last Friday, Charlene and I wandered down to Aqus and there was a band playing there. Good musicians, good harmonies, but it was hard to hear the band over the conversation. We left after a little bit, walked to get groceries, and talked about why, and she pointed out that the band was having fun with each other, rather than having fun connecting with the audience.
As a caller, the only thing I've got is connecting with the floor, and that's a very hierarchical relationship. I realize that this is part of why Charlene and I find caller workshops so much fun even though the calling is often rudimentary and uneven; we're hanging out, and dancing, with other people who are experiencing the form in the same way that we do.
No good answers (except that we're definitely gonna work to support our friend who's trying to get a regular song circle going in Petaluma, 'cause that's something we can do together that's a less uneven way to build community), but further little dots in trying to figure out how we might find something that looks enough like square dancing that we get similar things out of it, but one that doesn't require so much effort on the part of just a very few to sustain.