Flutterby™! : Square Dance Calling whine of the moment

Tomorrow night we're going down to Marin for a song circle with Marv Zauderer. Thursday I'm driving... I'm allowing 2 hours there, probably an hour and a half back... so 3 to 4 hours ... to call in the East Bay. And I've turned down quite a few East Bay calling gigs recently. And I'm thinking about square dance calling vs song circles, and what I'm putting my energy into, and how square dancing *needs* more callers here willing to subsidize the hobby ('cause calling is not a cheap hobby), let alone in the East Bay, and what we put our energies into.

One of the nearer clubs getting my services of late made some huge shifts in their calling because they wanted to feel like the caller was more a part of their social circles. And as I compare square dancing to song circles, I see just how much the idea of the caller as separate is baked into the activity, and how the song circle community can have nurturing additional leaders integrated into the activity.

One of Charlene's complaints with me calling is that we don't get a chance to dance together as much as she'd like. I don't know how to change, to reimagine, square dancing as an activity to be less hierarchical, to be more nurturing of new callers, to have a better mix of dancing and calling.

It really means an extreme re-work of the activity.