Skyline School family dance
4/27/2012
Band: The Remnants
(Given Harrison, Don Noon, and Chris Cooper)
| |
Dance Name |
Author |
Variants/comments |
| 1 |
Wind Up the Ball of Yarn |
Traditional |
Circle dance |
| 2 |
Favors the Rose |
Traditional |
|
| 3 |
Galopede |
Traditional |
|
| 4 |
La Bastringue |
Traditional |
Circle dance
done as non-mixer |
| 5 |
Southern square -- stars |
Traditional |
done as scatter mixer |
| 6 |
Over the Top |
Traditional |
|
| 7 |
Heel & Toe Polka |
Traditional |
|
| 8 |
Southern square -- Birdie in the Cage |
Traditional |
done as scatter mixer |
| 9 |
Polka Contry |
Traditional |
|
| 10 |
Atlantic Mixer |
|
Circle mixer |
| 11 |
Blobs |
|
|
An annual gig at a school of K-6 graders. I was filling in for the regular caller. The evening dance was 100+ students, along with some parents. Some notes on the dances:
Wind Up the Ball of Yarn: The no-walkthrough dance. First just moving the circle, then casting and inverting the circle, then going under an arch towards the end of the circle, and finally the infamous wind up the ball of yarn.
Favors the Rose: A German. Also called the "Hat Dance" or the "Fan Dance." Worked really well despite a very long line, with everyone only getting two chances. I've yet to have this dance fail.
Galopede: Getting people in lines was surprisingly challenging. Part of it was I'd run the lines in "Favors the Rose" the other way, to make them longer. Also, this was the first dance that needed partners. While running the dance, after the first few times I had multiple couples sashay down, and the final time had everyone sashay down.
La Bastringue: Done as a non-mixer, with a do-si-do and "swing"/two-hand turn instead of a balance and swing. All tricks I picked up from watching David Millstone at a past NEFFA.
Southern square -- stars: Scatter mixer, as I wasn't familiar enough with big sets to be able to explain the starting formation well. Basically a circle left/star right/star left/"swing" neighbor/"swing" partner. One thing I noticed is that the kids got really into repeating the patter. "How do you do/Fine thank you."
Over the Top: Three sets. There was a huge difference in timing between sets, depending on the height/age/motivation of the pairs that were going over the top. There were some sets where I had couples go over the top two/three times while waiting for other sets. But in retrospect I should have shut up and let them each go on their own speed.
Heel & Toe Polka: The first mixer, which went over surprisingly well. Once again, a lot of kids started chanting my patter after a few times through, which was kind of neat. I need to look more into play-party games.
Birdie in the Cage: Including throwing in some stars. I started with traditional birds: birdie/crow/wren/owl. But after a bit, I started changing the later birds (though I always started with birdie), including rooster, vulture, duck, and eventually penguin and gorilla. I got some fun responses to those. Missed opportunities included flamingo, hummingbird, and roadrunner. There's always next time.
Polka Contry: Including step-swing balances. Last time through I had lines of four continuously going down the hall.
Atlantic Mixer: Balance and swing replaced by do-si-do and swing-like-thing. It took a while for kids to get the idea of "lost and found is in the center," despite that being my primary teaching point. But they did eventually work it out.
Blobs: The encore dance, done with circles and stars. One long set. Using a tip I'd read from trad-dance-callers, I mentioned the key point in the dance was to say "blobs" as often as possible. So they added "blobs" on the middle of forward and back, and many other places. My prompts turned into "blobs blob right", and eventually just "blob" every eight beats. Continuing with the theme, I had the last time through just having blobs sashay down the center.