Scottish Line Dance to Yes Indeed Funny
Hints and Tips for SCD - Calling
So you've been asked to get a roomful of people through a dance they may not know. What should you do?
- First and foremost - know the dance. Think it through beforehand. Work out where the awkward explanations are likely to come, and how to put it across to the dancers.
- Prepare beforehand! Be sure you know how the dance goes.
- If you want to dance yourself, find a partner in good time.
- Stand upright, don't slouch.
- Speak loudly, clearly, slowly, looking up towards the dancers and not down onto a sheet of paper.
- When announcing the dance:
- Give the name of the dance, and say whether it is a jig, reel, etc and how many bars.
- If the dance is a complex one, suitable for experienced dancers only, mention this. (eg Gothenburg's Welcome.)
- Say how many couples are needed to form a set; specify if the set is eg square or round the room.
- The first man in each set / each line should count off the couples, to ensure the sets are complete.
- When recapping the dance:
- It is better to read the description well than to ad lib it badly.
- Give the dance title etc again, and say how many couples dance - eg "Highland Fair is a 32 bar jig for two couples".
- If eg 3rd & 4th couples start the dance on opposite sides, say so and whether or not the music has two chords. (The music used for Lord Huntly's Cave does not.)
- If the cribs are clear, most dances can be "read" almost directly from them (*). If not, write the dance out in your own words beforehand. (* Exceptions to this include dances like JB Milne, which is clearer if the last 16 bars are given first for the dancing couple and then for the supporting couples.)
- Use pauses and intonation to indicate phrasing.
- Where appropriate, add at the end "Repeat from second place" or "Start again with a new top couple".
- Be brief! Give clear and precise instructions, but avoid unnecessary detail. People should know the dance; the recap is just a reminder. In formations where confusion frequently occurs, a little extra detail can be given - eg for a full Strathspey poussette, "starting from the sidelines".
- Get it right the first time - once through only, don't recap the recap. At the end, a very brief reminder of how the dance starts can, however, be helpful.
- Speak loudly, clearly and slowly. Think of the people at the very back of the room (if you don't have a microphone). If you feel you're speaking quite a bit too slowly then it is probably just right for the audience to understand.
- Study up on the dance beforehand. If you have never seen the dance before in your life, your briefing is probably not going to be too helpful (unless it is for the Linton Ploughman). Look at the original instructions if at all possible -- diagrams are often muddled or just plain wrong. There is nothing more embarrassing for the briefer nor more confusing to the audience than a briefing that is constantly corrected by people from the floor.
- Try to structure your briefing in phrases of, say, eight bars' worth of dancing. Then leave a short pause. This helps your breathing and also makes it easier for the audience to figure out where you are in the dance.
- Avoid bar numbers as in `2nd couple move up on bars 11-12' since nobody will be able to calculate what moment of the dance you're talking about -- it's better to say `1st couple cast off while the 2s move up'. If that isn't possible -- e.g., during bars 17-24 of The Wild Geese, where the 2nd couple is supposed to step up in time so the dancing couple sees where they have to end up --, try to relate the bar numbers to the current figure, e.g., `1st couple lead down the middle and up to 2nd place, 2s step up on 3 and 4' rather than `2s step up on 19 and 20'.
- Don't try to teach the dance in your briefing. You want to include enough detail so people will know what to do, but you don't want to take as long for the briefing as it takes to do the actual dance. E.g., a briefing for Schiehallion takes about 30 seconds, maximum.
- If the dance in question contains a `compound' figure like `Dance to each corner and set' or `Set and rotate', resist the temptation of explaining all the little movements that it consists of. The dancers are supposed to know the figures -- you just remind them which one comes when.
- Leave off the little jokes and stories that the audience has heard a hundred times before. You're the MC, not a stand-up comedian, and the people out on the floor probably want to dance rather than listen to your being funny. (At any rate, the ratio of more-or-less humorous narrative to actual briefing should not exceed 1.0 unless you really *are* very, very funny indeed.)
- Be brief. Remember it is called a `briefing', not a `verbosing'.
See also the other hints and tips sections:
- The root page
- Dance-floor etiquette
- What to wear and how
- General dancing hints and tips.
- Hints on dance technique.
- Being beginner-friendly.
- Dancing with children
- Compiling a dance programme
- Running a Dance
- Calling/Recapping (talking a dance through)
- Devising new dances
- Performing
- Hints on teaching
- Looking after your body/injuries.
- Sports Massage as it might apply to dancing.
- Where to find books, recordings, equipment, ...
- Articles by Keith Grant that will help you take care of the body you dance with. They are presented here in pdf format, and are readable with the assistance of Adobe Acrobat.
- Dancing Our Feet Off Without Injuring Them, by Linking Our Warm-Ups to Kinetic Chains
- Imagery, Movement, and the Dynamic Dance of Life
- Tender Loving Care for Dancers' Legs
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ian@scottishdance.net
Edinburgh, Scotland
Last modified 8-10-02
Source: http://www.scottishdance.net/scd/tips/Calling.html
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