Maia Calls Dances

What a delight to attend American Week 2023 at Pinewoods Camp. I was there on a callership (which is how I’ve decided to refer to my caller scholarship), doing maybe 25% of the calling for the week so that Will Mentor and Lisa Greenleaf had some space to breathe. I got to call some Challenging Contra sessions and some chunks of the evening dance, and also got to do a whole lot more dancing than I usually do when I’m on staff, which was honestly great. Also, I premiered a handful of new dances (marked here with a star). Here’s what I called this week! Read on →

Whether you’re calling a regular evening dance or a block at a larger dance event, you want your dancers to leave the hall grinning. What might you look for in a last dance to end your session on a high note? Predictably, I have some thoughts! Here are my criteria for a good closer, and some of my favorite dances that fill this programming niche.

What makes a good closer?

Nothing too think-y

At the end of a session, and especially at the end of an evening dance or a longer event, people’s brains are fried and they just want to groove out. You don’t want to spend too much time teaching or to make the dancers think too hard. This is also not the time to take a programming risk or push the skill level of your dancers, lest you end on a gnarly dance where the hall struggles to keep it together. Instead, go for something tried and true, so you’re sure to end the evening on a high note. Read on →

Folks say that the toughest part of calling isn’t calling the dance itself, but teaching the dance beforehand. And while I agree, lately I’ve been noticing an unfortunate fact: it doesn’t matter how good a teacher you are if nobody’s listening to you as you teach. The first step for any caller, then, is to get the attention of the hall so that they can start the walkthrough. As anyone who’s ever been to a contra knows, however, this is easier said than done.

The first question to ask, given a chatty and inattentive hall, is: why aren’t the dancers paying attention? Have they been given too little time to socialize between dances, so they’re making up for it in line? Or, conversely, have they been given too much socializing time, and now the dancing has lost its momentum? Gauging the appropriate interval between dances is a matter of intuition and guesswork, and depends greatly on circumstances and ✨vibe ✨. When folks have drifted into hands-four and there’s a natural lull in the conversation as everyone looks to the caller, it’s time to start the next dance.

But, what if it’s a chatty hall and that lull never falls? Read on →

Y’all, Queer Contra Dance Camp on the West Coast is SO EXCELLENT. A weekend of contra and queer joy among the redwoods—what a delight to call for these folks. I shared the calling with incomparable Chris Ricciotti, and got to work with some red-hot musicians: The Mean Lids, and Aaron Marcus / Emily Troll / Anna Patton.

I taught a workshop on waltz (“Stone Soup: Waltzing with What You’ve Got”), and one on holding contra lines together (“Contra Superglue”), and called a bunch of contras. Here are my programs: Read on →

A friend was recently asking for dances to build up their collection, as they were getting back into calling and their dance box had a lot of weird nonsense in it. (You know, that one dance you collected and wrote down but never actually tested, and then you try to call it and a hole opens up in the space-time continuum. Who hasn’t been there?)

Below are the dances I’d recommend to them and to anyone else with the same question. I’ve roughly grouped them into some categories that I find useful when building up a collection—any categories or classes of dances that I’ve missed?

Opener/Beginner dances

The dances you call first or second in an evening to get the beginners oriented, or that you pull out when someone’s entire bachelorette party (for instance) rolls into the hall. There are many of these to choose from but I’ve limited myself to just a couple.

• Hypnosis by Melanie Axel-Lute - a good intro dance with low piece count and lots of moving together, that doesn’t involve a chain. Good to just get people moving and not worry about teaching a chain yet.
• Airpants by Lisa Greenleaf — glossary dance, no chain Read on →

I’m thrilled beyond belief that I got to go to Pinewoods this summer, and dance, and hug all my friends, swim in Long Pond and eat pot de créme on the porch. Being on the mic again after all this bullshit was such a damn delight (and I even remembered which end to talk into!). So many thanks to the organizers who scrambled on 8 weeks’ notice to put together this incredible week. Read on →

I would say I’m alllmost recovered from the all-nighter I pulled this weekend calling the graveyard shift (4AM–7AM)—but heck, what a blast! Here’s the program I called (most of these walked through minimally or not at all):

Last weekend, I called my first techno contra (as part of a double dance at CDNY to celebrate the wedding of two of our lovely dancing humans 😍). It turns out, to no one’s surprise, that calling techno is a fair bit different from calling a regular evening dance. Here are my reflections on calling my first techno (including a bunch of great advice from folks on SharedWeight’s Callers’ Listserv).

Hey experienced contradancers! Have you been looking for a new way to contribute to your dance community? Here’s one that I’ve been trying. It’s really small, and has the potential to make a really big impact on the quality of our dances, especially as more and more of us get on board with it. Ready? Here it is:

Be quiet when the caller starts talking, and don’t talk through the walkthrough.

I’ve been contradancing for over eight years, and can jump into even the most complex and falling-apart of contras and still have some idea of what’s going on. But last summer at English-Scottish-Contra Week at Pinewoods, I tried Scottish Country Dance for the first time and I had an experience I haven’t had for quite a while: I was completely at sea in a set dance.