Calling your first contra dance

Find or make an opportunity to call

You can start selecting a dance before you have a prospect of calling, but you need to find a place to call before you can become a caller.

  • Look for an "open mike" evening in your area
  • Look for a late night "open mike" session at a nearby dance camp
  • Look for a callers' workshop session
  • Ask about a "guest slot" at your local dance
  • Organize a dance party in your living room or that of a freind

    • Select a dance

    For your first few times calling, I suggest that you stick to "easy" dances. But what does that mean? Characteristics of easy dances

  • Contain few moves (have a low "piece count")
  • Feature long moves or sequences (down the hall and back, balance & swing)
  • Use the most familiar, simple moves (circle, long lines, allemande, do-si-do, swing)
  • Use repetition (circle left, then star left or circle left, circle right)
  • Have most moves start on major phrase boundaries
  • Have clear, unambiguous timing
  • Involve dancers equally ("symmetric" and "equal")
  • Maintain connections between dancers most of the time
    • I have a small selection of simple, reliable dances on another page.

    Learn your selected dance

    While you could call a dance by reading it directly from the card, doing so makes it hard to watch the dancers. It can also deaden your vocal presentation. While some master callers insist that every caller completely memorize every dance they ever want to call, few succeed in doing so. For now, you need to study the dance you have selected sufficiently well so that you know what every more in the dance involves, know what words you want to use during the walk-through, and know the words and timing you'll use after the music starts. Note that these will usually be different sets of words!

    Practice the timing of your calls

    You should finish each call just before the music tells the dancers to move. For most easy dances, this means that you finish the call on the last beats of one musical phrase, so that the dancers will be ready to dance on the first beat of the next phrase.

    Practice the timing with recordings. I find this more difficult than calling to dancers because a recording provides no visual clues that can help remind you what you need to do next. This may work better for you than it does for me; I am a visual learner.

    Step up to the mike and call your dance

    Organize the set(s)
    If you're calling at at open mike that's part of an established series, the process may be straightforward. Use whatever words you need to get folks to find partners and line up one or more row(s) of couples. "Take Hands four from the top."
    One simple thing that can make (or break) your walk-through is waiting (or failing to wait) until ALL the couples have taken hands four and are ready to dance.
    Walk through the dance
    Tell the dancers who will do the move, what the move is, and how to do the move. You may need to tell them how much to do and/or where they should end up.
    For example: "Neighbor Allemande Left Once-and-a-half until the Robins face in."
    Pacing of your instructions important. If you're too fast, some dancers will fall behind, and may miss something. If you're too slow, some dancers may mistake repetition of words or clarifications as instruction to do a move a second time.
    Make sure that the sets are ready to go and know who will dance with whom when the music starts.
    Start the band and the dance
    The "four potatoes" allow time for you to get out the first call, so that the dancers know exactly what to do when the top of the tune arrives.
    Call every move at first
    Shorten your calls
    Instead of "Robins chain to your partner, coutesy turn" simply "chain!"
    Drop out some calls, then all calls
    Once the dancers seem to be "getting" the dance, you can pull back from calling every move. You may wish to keep calling
    (1) The move at the start of the dance ("with your new neighbor...")
    (2) The move following each swing (because dancers can lose track of which is which.
    (3) Any note-worthy or non-obvious moves ("on the LEFT diagonal...")
    Decide when to end the dance and inform the band
    Most bands are used to callers "holding up fingers" to indicate that they should play their last tune two or three more times, then "go out." It works well to signal the band ducing the "B2" part of the music, because then it is clear that "two more times" does not include the current iteration.
    Get feedback on how it went
    Make sure you have at least one person willing to give you honest feedback. Listen to them. You can try to clarify the comments you receive by asking for specific clear observations ("What did you see?") instead of opinions or corrections ("What you need to do is ____" or "That last dance sucked!") so that you can form or correct your own opinions.

    Next steps

    Do it again!

    Call dances with more complicated timing

    Call dances with more complicated moves

    Teaching specific moves is an art!

    Call dances with more moves

    Select and call more than one dance in an evening

    Work more closely with your musicians to select appropriate tunes

    What I do NOT cover here (or cover elsewhere)

  • Creating and organizing dance cards
  • Becoming a good dancer
  • Getting booked to call
  • Selecting a program of dances
  • The structure of music for contra dances (A1, A2, B1, B2)
  • Matching tunes and dances
  • Creating great medleys of dances
  • Calling dances that don't fit 32-bar AABB tunes
  • Leading a newcomers' session
  • Managing sets on the floor
  • Adapting to circumstances that arise unexpectedly
  • Building your repertoire
  • Using microphones and other sound equipment
  • Finding a hall
  • Supporting your community
  • Shaping your community
  • Evaluating a caller, possibly yourself
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    Return to my contra calling resources page