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This year Rob and I were actually ON THE STAFF at the Thanksgiving weekend festival we attend every year. WOW!
This is a "Challenge" level square dance festival with callers who are not only nationally acclaimed, but internationally renowned. Probably every single person who has been on the staff at this event is one of the top ten Challenge-level callers in the entire world. I am not kidding. Top of the field, anywhere on the planet, that's the type of people they get for this thing. Usually we are just "trail-in callers" - sort of like being the little band that plays before the big well known band gets on stage. This time, one of the four people who comprise the main act decided he didn't want to fly to the USA at this time, so we got to substitute.
Point of above paragraph: Those are big shoes to fill. I was nervous as all get-out.
But it went really well! It was fun, the dancers had a good time, and I got to see that YES I can do this. It was tiring, what with the 10am to 11pm schedule plus afterparties, but it was energizing as well. Ah, show business. :-) I love it when the dancers are clearly having a good time. Great positive energy... whooping and hollering... and yeah, ego boost. :-)
There's an introductory bit where all four (well, five, since Rob and I were one caller) of us get up on one stage together and ad lib. At the very end of the weekend, we do the same, with perhaps a little more goofing around. At the beginning, I was too nervous to ad lib; I brought prepared stuff, and everyone else was just rattling things off while I was glancing down at my papers. By the end, though, I was making sh*t up just like everyone else. That felt great! It was good to see that I was relaxing and becoming more confident.
I made up two asymmetric sequences. I won't bore y'all with why this is way cool, but I was very pleased. Yay!
And when I was in the C-1 hall, near the end of Saturday night, the dancers were clowning around big time and heckling me a bit. Made me feel accepted. For the last tip (1 "tip" = about 15 minutes of dancing, after which there's a break) they squared up with eight women in one square and eight men in another, for an informal Battle of the Sexes. I made sure to call a lot of sex-dependent calls. They were having a great time and their whooping and hollering even attracted quite an audience by the end of the tip!
The only downside to attending this event every year is that we always have Thanksgiving dinner at whatever restaurant is still open at 8pm in Santa Barbara or Oxnard. All the fast food joints close, half the gas stations close, etc, etc; the only restaurant left is usually something like Sambo's or Carrow's, and they're out of mashed potatoes and most kinds of pie. :-) But we do get to spend Thanksgiving with people we like, which is a blessing most people don't seem to have.
We didn't fly this year, we drove. As of Thursday morning we saw a nasty cold front due to arrive over the weekend, and since weather predictions several days in advance are not very precise, we couldn't be sure we'd have flyable weather for the return trip. Boo hoo. Actually, I enjoyed the drive. Eight hours in the car, talking, joking, studying C-4, noticing that the driver of the car next to us has sideburns that are about to obscure his ears entirely, stuff like that... it's fun. Except for the dearth of available food.
Came back via Monterey and Hwy 17 to avoid the horrendous pile of traffic coming northbound via Gilroy and Morgan Hill. Worked like a charm.
I am getting nothing done today at work. Sigh. Back to studying C-4. (Yes, I'm trying that AGAIN.) :-)
This is a "Challenge" level square dance festival with callers who are not only nationally acclaimed, but internationally renowned. Probably every single person who has been on the staff at this event is one of the top ten Challenge-level callers in the entire world. I am not kidding. Top of the field, anywhere on the planet, that's the type of people they get for this thing. Usually we are just "trail-in callers" - sort of like being the little band that plays before the big well known band gets on stage. This time, one of the four people who comprise the main act decided he didn't want to fly to the USA at this time, so we got to substitute.
Point of above paragraph: Those are big shoes to fill. I was nervous as all get-out.
But it went really well! It was fun, the dancers had a good time, and I got to see that YES I can do this. It was tiring, what with the 10am to 11pm schedule plus afterparties, but it was energizing as well. Ah, show business. :-) I love it when the dancers are clearly having a good time. Great positive energy... whooping and hollering... and yeah, ego boost. :-)
There's an introductory bit where all four (well, five, since Rob and I were one caller) of us get up on one stage together and ad lib. At the very end of the weekend, we do the same, with perhaps a little more goofing around. At the beginning, I was too nervous to ad lib; I brought prepared stuff, and everyone else was just rattling things off while I was glancing down at my papers. By the end, though, I was making sh*t up just like everyone else. That felt great! It was good to see that I was relaxing and becoming more confident.
I made up two asymmetric sequences. I won't bore y'all with why this is way cool, but I was very pleased. Yay!
And when I was in the C-1 hall, near the end of Saturday night, the dancers were clowning around big time and heckling me a bit. Made me feel accepted. For the last tip (1 "tip" = about 15 minutes of dancing, after which there's a break) they squared up with eight women in one square and eight men in another, for an informal Battle of the Sexes. I made sure to call a lot of sex-dependent calls. They were having a great time and their whooping and hollering even attracted quite an audience by the end of the tip!
The only downside to attending this event every year is that we always have Thanksgiving dinner at whatever restaurant is still open at 8pm in Santa Barbara or Oxnard. All the fast food joints close, half the gas stations close, etc, etc; the only restaurant left is usually something like Sambo's or Carrow's, and they're out of mashed potatoes and most kinds of pie. :-) But we do get to spend Thanksgiving with people we like, which is a blessing most people don't seem to have.
We didn't fly this year, we drove. As of Thursday morning we saw a nasty cold front due to arrive over the weekend, and since weather predictions several days in advance are not very precise, we couldn't be sure we'd have flyable weather for the return trip. Boo hoo. Actually, I enjoyed the drive. Eight hours in the car, talking, joking, studying C-4, noticing that the driver of the car next to us has sideburns that are about to obscure his ears entirely, stuff like that... it's fun. Except for the dearth of available food.
Came back via Monterey and Hwy 17 to avoid the horrendous pile of traffic coming northbound via Gilroy and Morgan Hill. Worked like a charm.
I am getting nothing done today at work. Sigh. Back to studying C-4. (Yes, I'm trying that AGAIN.) :-)
Re: Hassling the caller
It's fun to be the caller thus "hassled", because in most cases it means the dancers trust me to deal with it smoothly. And it gives great opportunities for chatting with the dancers from the stage. "Oh, you folks are gonna get me in trouble here!" or "The men's square seems to have gotten home first." :-) (I'm such a troublemaker...!)