Just wanted to add my 2 cents on Luke's (Lisa's?) dance  

I would hesitate to have the last 3 moves in the dance be a partner swing, ladies half-chain, star left, since it seems that more modern contras end with those moves than with any other 3-move combination (eg. The Nice Combination, The Baby Rose to name two)  This makes it tough to fit such a dance into a program, if you would like to have other callers call your dance from time to time

If I were trying to finish a dance that had a partner swing (on the gent's original side) in B1, I'd rather  go with the slightly less common long lines, ladies half-chain in B2

Mark Widmer

ps I seem to be the only one who thinks the  women should do a left allemande in the dance Luke posted  -- mainly because of the balance that follows it

Bronwyn made the point that the neighbor can better assist leading into a right-hand allemande, but since the preceeding move is a long-lines-fwd-&-back, I'm not sure that is as important here

That being said, I just don't get to dance the ladies role very often these days, so will defer to a woman's opinion about the best flow for this dance


Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 17:17:39 -0400
From: Bronwyn Woods <woods.bronwyn at googlemail.com>
To: "Caller's discussion list" <callers at sharedweight.net>
Subject: Re: [Callers] question about flow and feel
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I would find a left allemande awkward.  For me, the issue comes before the
allemande rather than after.  When the ladies are on the right, their
neighbors can assist them into a right allemande.  The neighbor cannot
assist into a left allemande, so the ladies have to break the connection to
their neighbor before beginning the figure.  This connection is more
important to me than which hand begins a balance.

-Bronwyn

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 4:59 PM, Luke Donev <luke.donev at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I'm sitting at home writing a contra (they get in my head and won't
> leave me alone till I write them down). I unfortunately don't have a
> closet full of dancers to pull out and test things on, but I've got a
> question about flow.
>
> When the ladies are standing to the right of their neighbor on the
> side of the set, facing their partner,  and are going to allemande
> over to their partner for a balance and swing, should it be an
> allemande Right or Left? I feel like the R is more traditional for
> ladies, but an allemande L would leave their R hand free for a
> smoother transition to a balance and swing (I feel lead's L, follow's
> R is a better 1 hand balance to go into a swing with than lead's R,
> follow's L).
>
> To put it in context, consider the following dance:
> Sample dance 1, Improper
> A1: N bal & swg
> A2: long lines, fwd & back
>      Ladies Allmnd L 1+ to partner
> B1: ptr bal & swg
> B2: ladies 1/2 chain
>      star L 1x, on to next
>
> I think the ladies should allemande L there, but I'd be curious what
> other people think of the flow.
>
> If it was something like going to a R hand R hand balance for a box
> the gnat, it would seem to force the issue, but it seems more open
> when it's just going into a swing. Preferences? Thoughts?
>
> --
> Luke Donev
> http://www.lukedonev.com
> Luke.Donev at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________