End of Day 3 in Denver
May. 24th, 2007 12:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
billeylerI just finished catching up on LJ, most of the posts being bjarvis's quite succinct synopsises of the intermediate and advanced sessions with the caller coaches.
This three days of working with the beginner callers has been good in that I've seen 10 people progress from just a vague interesting in learning to call right up to fevered work on preparing for their first dance in front of live people in just a very few hours. Out of the 10, only ONE had ever had any training at all. And of the 10, only 1 fit into the scary category of "this one definitely shouldn't be here."
Anne was right when she told me on Monday that I could easily teach the caller school. It's material I've been over dozens of time before in real life, not just in theory. Working with Anny, Deborah and John was extremely easy, since I've called flyins with all of them over years, and they were all very receptive to having 'good helpers.' I think Chi Chi did a nice job being there for all the admin and go-fer stuff and never lost his cool that I could see.
As a teaching assistant, my job was to be the continuity and "additional voice of wisdom" for the beginners with the 3 paid staff members rotating between lessons. I was able to work with all the coaches on the same level as if I were the 'headliner'...which worked well for me. Hoped it worked as well for the people in the class, and didn't cause any confusion. The material for the new callers was the basic Chicken Plucker and extrapolations thereof, with lots of other relevant material thrown in, and I got to know some of them pretty well. There will be a couple of serious contenders from this group of folks (9 men and 1 woman). I'm really looking forward to hearing of their progress after convention.
Danny's spent a lot of quality and well-deserved relaxation hours here over the three days so far, even indulging in a one hour massage from hotel staff this morning (Ken, a hunklet, from what he says). Lucky guy! We've found some close by restaurants where he could eat without threat of dying from milk poisoning. I know he's going to be kept busy on IAGSDC site business while I calling over the next 4 days. The only thing we've bought at the hotel so far is a couple of social-hour beers.
Today was the filtering in of the first wave of convention attendees. This is a HUGE relief, since we've been such a small contingent in this massive downtown Hyatt hotel. Multiple conventions happen at the same time here all the time, and it was feeling like we didn't have much presence at all. There were breakfast and snack setups in the hallways for OTHER groups that we couldn't touch. One treat was that Ken Rittucci from the Boston area happened to be here for a work conference (medical field of some sort) and he hung out with all of us as much as possible. Every time I see Ken though, I wonder how he can keep calling. His voice is so ragged and hoarse that it sounds like he's seriously blown it out. It's fingernails and blackboards to me.
Tomorrow is the GCA school dance at 10am. I'm excited to go to this one, having been such an active part of the school. Looking at the schedule, it seems to be a good mix of the brand-new to the advanced. I'll go early to lend them some moral support. Immediately after that, I have to head out with Bear Miller, Charlie Robertson, and Kris to pick up our costumes for the trails-end dance and work through music and pairings. I'm still stunned I was asked to call for the trails-end dance...I'm not nervous about it, but I'm sure I will be by 6pm tomorrow.
I did have one really odd episode today. Brian, one of the caller coordinators for the convention, stopped me randomly in the lobby this morning to tell me to forget the Contra dance I was scheduled to call. I just looked at him with a blank expression and asked him what he was talking about since I don't call Contras. He said that the preliminary schedule I had been sent showed me calling a Contra dance (I didn't see that on the schedule!), but no one knew what it was so they dropped it from the schedule. What I had ASKED for (through Linda in Phoenix) was a Heritage dance where I could teach some of the square dances that were done in 1948 - 1955 that were the roots of what originally became MWSD. I just walked away shaking my head...of course, no one had talked to me about scheduling or asked me what it was I was wanting to do. Ah, well. I do get to do the Hexagons...hope someone shows at the early hour it's scheduled!
This kinda falls into the category of them calling the "Intro to Calling" workshop a "GCA Callers Workshop" on the schedule...totally misleading! I sure hope THAT got corrected for the final schedule. We'll find out when we actually register tomorrow.
I am excited that Denver is peaking at 1100 registered dancers...the most that have been to a convention since maybe LA in '99! Yahoo and excellent for them! This Hyatt is only a couple of blocks from the Executive Tower Hotel (I think it's called the Curtis Hotel now) were I attended my first convention in '85...totally in awe and excitement! In '85, there were about 400 dancers, and it was VERY unorganized, but we didn't care...we were just happy to be togetter dancing Mainstream and Plus. There was no GCA...just two staff callers (Elmer Sheffield and Paul Marcum) and a bunch of newbies showing their stuff.
Anyway, the social event of the evening was walking down to the Buell Theatre to see "Wicked"...VERY fun show to watch with the very large clatch of other square dancers there! I don't know how many of us there were...maybe 10% of the audience. We had great seats right in the middle of the theatre, and our friends Cal and Rover were right behind us, so we got to yak with them for a while. Since I work at a performing arts center (not nearly as nice as the Denver one), I teeter on being jaded with Broadway shows, but this one was definitely written with a gay audience in mind. Nearly EVERY song was choreographed to be a show stopped with BIG vocals. Major costuming and massive lighting effects. None of the songs were really that memorable, although I have heard "Popular" a few times over the past couple of years. I think we're going to have "Wicked" on our 08-09 season (finally).
The weather promises to improve over the next few days. Today (and yesterday) was rainy and cold. Ugh.
1:30 am...time to hit the hay to be up for a long day tomorrow!
bjarvis's quite succinct synopsises of the intermediate and advanced sessions with the caller coaches.This three days of working with the beginner callers has been good in that I've seen 10 people progress from just a vague interesting in learning to call right up to fevered work on preparing for their first dance in front of live people in just a very few hours. Out of the 10, only ONE had ever had any training at all. And of the 10, only 1 fit into the scary category of "this one definitely shouldn't be here."
Anne was right when she told me on Monday that I could easily teach the caller school. It's material I've been over dozens of time before in real life, not just in theory. Working with Anny, Deborah and John was extremely easy, since I've called flyins with all of them over years, and they were all very receptive to having 'good helpers.' I think Chi Chi did a nice job being there for all the admin and go-fer stuff and never lost his cool that I could see.
As a teaching assistant, my job was to be the continuity and "additional voice of wisdom" for the beginners with the 3 paid staff members rotating between lessons. I was able to work with all the coaches on the same level as if I were the 'headliner'...which worked well for me. Hoped it worked as well for the people in the class, and didn't cause any confusion. The material for the new callers was the basic Chicken Plucker and extrapolations thereof, with lots of other relevant material thrown in, and I got to know some of them pretty well. There will be a couple of serious contenders from this group of folks (9 men and 1 woman). I'm really looking forward to hearing of their progress after convention.
Danny's spent a lot of quality and well-deserved relaxation hours here over the three days so far, even indulging in a one hour massage from hotel staff this morning (Ken, a hunklet, from what he says). Lucky guy! We've found some close by restaurants where he could eat without threat of dying from milk poisoning. I know he's going to be kept busy on IAGSDC site business while I calling over the next 4 days. The only thing we've bought at the hotel so far is a couple of social-hour beers.
Today was the filtering in of the first wave of convention attendees. This is a HUGE relief, since we've been such a small contingent in this massive downtown Hyatt hotel. Multiple conventions happen at the same time here all the time, and it was feeling like we didn't have much presence at all. There were breakfast and snack setups in the hallways for OTHER groups that we couldn't touch. One treat was that Ken Rittucci from the Boston area happened to be here for a work conference (medical field of some sort) and he hung out with all of us as much as possible. Every time I see Ken though, I wonder how he can keep calling. His voice is so ragged and hoarse that it sounds like he's seriously blown it out. It's fingernails and blackboards to me.
Tomorrow is the GCA school dance at 10am. I'm excited to go to this one, having been such an active part of the school. Looking at the schedule, it seems to be a good mix of the brand-new to the advanced. I'll go early to lend them some moral support. Immediately after that, I have to head out with Bear Miller, Charlie Robertson, and Kris to pick up our costumes for the trails-end dance and work through music and pairings. I'm still stunned I was asked to call for the trails-end dance...I'm not nervous about it, but I'm sure I will be by 6pm tomorrow.
I did have one really odd episode today. Brian, one of the caller coordinators for the convention, stopped me randomly in the lobby this morning to tell me to forget the Contra dance I was scheduled to call. I just looked at him with a blank expression and asked him what he was talking about since I don't call Contras. He said that the preliminary schedule I had been sent showed me calling a Contra dance (I didn't see that on the schedule!), but no one knew what it was so they dropped it from the schedule. What I had ASKED for (through Linda in Phoenix) was a Heritage dance where I could teach some of the square dances that were done in 1948 - 1955 that were the roots of what originally became MWSD. I just walked away shaking my head...of course, no one had talked to me about scheduling or asked me what it was I was wanting to do. Ah, well. I do get to do the Hexagons...hope someone shows at the early hour it's scheduled!
This kinda falls into the category of them calling the "Intro to Calling" workshop a "GCA Callers Workshop" on the schedule...totally misleading! I sure hope THAT got corrected for the final schedule. We'll find out when we actually register tomorrow.
I am excited that Denver is peaking at 1100 registered dancers...the most that have been to a convention since maybe LA in '99! Yahoo and excellent for them! This Hyatt is only a couple of blocks from the Executive Tower Hotel (I think it's called the Curtis Hotel now) were I attended my first convention in '85...totally in awe and excitement! In '85, there were about 400 dancers, and it was VERY unorganized, but we didn't care...we were just happy to be togetter dancing Mainstream and Plus. There was no GCA...just two staff callers (Elmer Sheffield and Paul Marcum) and a bunch of newbies showing their stuff.
Anyway, the social event of the evening was walking down to the Buell Theatre to see "Wicked"...VERY fun show to watch with the very large clatch of other square dancers there! I don't know how many of us there were...maybe 10% of the audience. We had great seats right in the middle of the theatre, and our friends Cal and Rover were right behind us, so we got to yak with them for a while. Since I work at a performing arts center (not nearly as nice as the Denver one), I teeter on being jaded with Broadway shows, but this one was definitely written with a gay audience in mind. Nearly EVERY song was choreographed to be a show stopped with BIG vocals. Major costuming and massive lighting effects. None of the songs were really that memorable, although I have heard "Popular" a few times over the past couple of years. I think we're going to have "Wicked" on our 08-09 season (finally).
The weather promises to improve over the next few days. Today (and yesterday) was rainy and cold. Ugh.
1:30 am...time to hit the hay to be up for a long day tomorrow!
