San Diego, CA

An interesting evening. A lot of newcomers, over fifty percent for the first part, and many stayed on to the end. Including an entire high-school class that showed up at 7:50. I had already planned for a somewhat simpler program due to recent trends, but even that went up in flames as I frantically reprogrammed.

For the square I did a main figure that couldn't fail, some easier break bits I'd seen from different iterations of "The Merry-Go-Round" at NEFFA (like "swing someone from a different square"), and some teaching of the grand right and left. "Balance and Cross" got changed at the last minute, because we still had new-dancer pairs, and I didn't want to deal with the half hey progression. The variant's not as good as the original, but it worked for that crowd.

Pretty much everything went well, though "Bristol Turns" was shaky out of the gate, and I taught the wrong hey for "Heart of Glass," having heavily practiced the other-direction star promenade in a dance that got bumped off the island.

For my own curiousity, here was the original program that went down in flames, but the band still had matched tunes for. (Though late in the first half I gave up matching dances to their planned tunes.)

1. Pittsboro Pattycake
2. O'Brien's Star
3. Al's Jubilee (circle mixer with heys)
4. Flirtation Reel or Carousel
5. Test Rory dance, moderately complex
6. Six Pass Through (square) with grand right and left break
7. Jess's Reel
8. Test star promenade dance, unusual but not too complex
9. Test triplet with grand right and left
10. Jersey Girl (fairly simple Bob Isaacs Petronella dance)
11. Chorus Jig
12. Balance and Cross