Particle Man, Particle Man, doing the things that a particle can
So, a few weeks back I tried calling contras at the 3rd friday thing at the Carlbergs'. I called a couple really simple dances and a more complicated dance. None of the lines disintegrated, so I count it a success. It was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. I'm looking into dances I can try this month.
That's not the exciting thing, though. While I was trying amateur calling for fun, Frank was getting paid to call in Columbus. He called Wave-Particle Duality and one of the more established callers asked for the choreography. She mentioned that she wanted to use it in an upcoming end-effects workshop. So, I'm thinking that she's got some kind of local workshop being planned, no big deal. When I say "no big deal" I don't mean that it wasn't super-exciting, just that I expected the audience to be small-ish and local, so the exciting part was a caller I'm not close-friends with adding a dance of mine to their repertoire even if they didn't call it often and it didn't get danced by many people (it's maybe a teensy bit complicated, both to call and to dance). It wasn't until Frank pointed out the Winter Warmup schedule had a slot labeled "Hot Contras/Great Endings" that it dawned on me she was calling it there. This means that it was being called to half a gymnasium of people, many from out of state.
During the walkthrough, I was helping my set make sense of the choreography. My partner said something like "you've obviously danced this before." I muttered kind of quietly "I wrote it." I got kind of an air of skeptical belief. Kate had asked earlier if she should identify me or not. I said it was up to her. After the walkthrough she told everyone that the caller was from nearby, that he was in the room, that he was not who they thought and that she'd wait to identify him after she saw how the dance turned out. I'm glad she did, not because I was worried (as I think she was) that it would fall apart and people would blame me but because it can be kind of intimidating to dance a dance with the person who wrote it. Also, because people tend to notice more if you screw up your own dance. Really, I shouldn't have told my partner it was mine, but hey. The rest of the weekend, I had strangers telling me they'd liked my dance and acquaintances telling me I needed to keep writing. It was nice to get unbiased feedback from people who weren't required to give feedback. You know, the way you can never quite be sure that your parents/friends are saying they like something you've designed/drawn/whatever because they really do or because they feel obliged to, or if their genuine appreciation is somewhat influenced by knowing you wrote it.
So, yeah, that's the excitement here. I've got all kinds of half-completed projects sitting around. If they ever get completed, maybe I'll tell y'all about them.
That's not the exciting thing, though. While I was trying amateur calling for fun, Frank was getting paid to call in Columbus. He called Wave-Particle Duality and one of the more established callers asked for the choreography. She mentioned that she wanted to use it in an upcoming end-effects workshop. So, I'm thinking that she's got some kind of local workshop being planned, no big deal. When I say "no big deal" I don't mean that it wasn't super-exciting, just that I expected the audience to be small-ish and local, so the exciting part was a caller I'm not close-friends with adding a dance of mine to their repertoire even if they didn't call it often and it didn't get danced by many people (it's maybe a teensy bit complicated, both to call and to dance). It wasn't until Frank pointed out the Winter Warmup schedule had a slot labeled "Hot Contras/Great Endings" that it dawned on me she was calling it there. This means that it was being called to half a gymnasium of people, many from out of state.
During the walkthrough, I was helping my set make sense of the choreography. My partner said something like "you've obviously danced this before." I muttered kind of quietly "I wrote it." I got kind of an air of skeptical belief. Kate had asked earlier if she should identify me or not. I said it was up to her. After the walkthrough she told everyone that the caller was from nearby, that he was in the room, that he was not who they thought and that she'd wait to identify him after she saw how the dance turned out. I'm glad she did, not because I was worried (as I think she was) that it would fall apart and people would blame me but because it can be kind of intimidating to dance a dance with the person who wrote it. Also, because people tend to notice more if you screw up your own dance. Really, I shouldn't have told my partner it was mine, but hey. The rest of the weekend, I had strangers telling me they'd liked my dance and acquaintances telling me I needed to keep writing. It was nice to get unbiased feedback from people who weren't required to give feedback. You know, the way you can never quite be sure that your parents/friends are saying they like something you've designed/drawn/whatever because they really do or because they feel obliged to, or if their genuine appreciation is somewhat influenced by knowing you wrote it.
So, yeah, that's the excitement here. I've got all kinds of half-completed projects sitting around. If they ever get completed, maybe I'll tell y'all about them.