Dance Information Enquiries

EMAIL RE CONTRA IN AUSTRALIA -  emilyaddison@gmail.com

I'm volunteer of the Country Dance & Song Society (www.cdss.org) contra dance task force. Our committee is currently preparing a survey of contra dance callers to find out challenges they face, resources that would helpful, etc. My task is to find as many contra callers outside of the US so we can send them an invite to participate in the the survey. So far, I've found over 100 callers in over 10 countries!

I know that in Australia, there aren't so much contra dances as bush dances that may include contra dances within an evening. We would love to hear from callers who include contras in their program whether they are beginner, relatively new or experienced callers.

If you know callers we should include from your local area, please send me their names, emails, AND home community by April 1st. We would love to have their input when the survey is ready in Apr/May!

Much thanks! Emily Addison Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

The rest of the committee consists of: Lynn Ackerson, Lisa Greenleaf, Chris Page, Louise Siddons & David Chandler ___________________________________________________________________________________________________

RESULTS OF SURVEY RE CONTRA IN AUSTRALIA

The results of the survey of contra dance callers you helped with last spring are now available on the CDSS website. You can download the pdf here: http://www.cdss.org/tl_files/cdss/documents/how-to/CDSS_Contra_Task_Force_survey_report_05dec2013.pdf or find a link on the CDSS contra dance resources page. You can navigate within the survey using the bookmarks at the left side of the page.

Thank you for taking the time to participate in the survey! A total of 480 people responded to the survey, and there is a great deal of useful information in the results. Some highlights are at the bottom of this email.

The CDSS Contra Dance Task Group, which sent out the survey, will be pursuing a number of areas identified in the survey as useful for callers. For example, a compilation of all the contra dance resources (websites, books, etc.) survey respondents recommended will soon be added to the CDSS contra resources web page.

Among the highlights:


 * Callers responded from 45 states in the US, plus 6 provinces in Canada and 9 other countries (with Denmark, Australia and England being most frequent).
 * 75% of respondents were over the age of 50 while 8% of the respondents were under 30. Men and women were represented pretty equally among respondents.
 * There is tremendous diversity in the dances people call for – in size, level of experience and frequency of dancing.
 * A number of callers don’t think of themselves as just contra callers since they call a wide variety of kinds of dances (e.g., squares, mixers, big circle) depending on the situation.
 * A great many callers (40%) are calling less than they would like. Only 20% are calling more than 10 times a year.
 * Challenges callers face include limited opportunity to call, calling for groups with very mixed experience, marketing oneself as a caller, dealing with issues in the dance community, working with the band, and feeling burned out by trying to do too much.
 * Asked how they learned to call, callers listed dozens of websites, books and other sources.
 * Most callers learned by observing other callers but they also learned in other ways such as being mentored (usually informally) and attending callers’ workshops.
 * Those who had experience with callers collectives found them to be an excellent way to get feedback and improve one’s skills – as well as to try out new dances.
 * There is quite a bit of interest in having an online database of dances as well as there being identified challenges around setting something like this up. We are going to explore some possibilities.
 * Many other needs were identified and there were also many suggestions for new resources. See the full report for more details!

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