At a dance a few weeks ago, an enthusiastic couple that had just finished Mainstream lessons showed up. The dance was advertised as MS with announced Plus. I got a strong square together to dance the first tip with the new couple because I wanted them to have a good dance experience. Practically the first thing out of the caller’s mouth was “heads square thru four, touch 1/4, follow your neighbor…”. Bamm! He followed it up with a few more Plus calls. Bamm! We got another couple to sub in for the new MS dancers. The new dancers were the only dancers sitting out.

And we think square dancing is welcoming? Sure it is, if you’ve been doing it for years.

The ASDC president talked to the caller and reminded him (he’d either forgotten or hadn’t read the contract) that the dance was MS and that all Plus tips would be announced. So the next tip, he called “Mainstream”…except he called “interesting” and fast Mainstream…fine if you’ve had a lot of floor time, but difficult or impossible if you’ve just finished lessons. In addition, because he was being “interesting,” he called Eight Chain Thru, Spin Chain Thru, and Fan the Top…all calls recently moved to the Plus list.

Fortunately, I’d stacked a square again, so we were able to get the new dancers through a challenging (even for experienced dancers) tip. And, fortunately, the new dancers weren’t totally discouraged and stayed for the rest of the evening.

But the whole experience brings up questions:

• How do we integrate Mainstream-only dancers into a Plus square dance world?”
• How do we integrate new dancers, whose reaction time is still a little slow, into a square dance world where most dancers have been dancing for years and can do a lot of stuff on auto-pilot?
• How do new dancers feel when they’re the only dancers sitting out during the Plus tips?
• How on earth can we sell square dancing as a fun activity for new dancers?!? (Check out Nasser Shukayr’s article, Modern Western Cars for a tongue-in-cheek description of what new dancers are up against.)
• How do we eliminate items from the MS list when we still have to teach them because callers still call them? (I still go to Plus dances where Remake the Thar is called.)

The new dancers are continuing to hang in there. Needless to say, they want to learn Plus as soon as possible. And how can I discourage them and tell them to get more floortime at MS, when there’s virtually no place to dance MS in Albuquerque?