Thoughts on Maypole dancing

[watervole]

 I was reading Vicarage's journal where he comments on the ineptness of the people in the public participation maypole dance he was watching and the fact that it ended in a real tangle.

I commented there, to the effect that I don't think there are bad dancers, only bad teachers.  I still stand by that, although I'd make an exception if the dancers have mental handicaps and can't really understand the instructions.

The trick with calling maypole is to start with something really basic to teach the dancers things like how to hold their ribbons.

1.  Do not wrap your ribbon round your wrist - basic safety.  IF you fall and can't let go, either your arm is going to get a very nasty yank or the pole will fall over. Both are bad...

2.  NEVER OVERTAKE.  If you can instil this principle on something like a really basic barber's pole, then the dancers will obey it when they come to more complicated moves.  Overtaking is the commonest cause of tangles.

3.  Call moves at the speed of the slowest dancer and make it very clear why you are doing so.  "It's not the bad dancers that make maypole dances go wrong, it's the good ones.  The good ones know what they should be doing next and do it before I call it. What you can't see is the little old lady (or mum with a baby, or three year old boy, or teenager who doesn't speak English) on the other side of the dance who is still sorting out the previous move.  If you move before I call, you'll be moving ahead of the other dancers and this will result in tangles."

4.  Find a clear way of checking that they know the colour of their ribbons and will respond to calls.  Something easy like dancing towards the pole when their colour is called and keep changing the colour order, so that they listen rather then move from habit.  Once you have that instilled, you can do more complex things with colour calls.

5.  Never use the words right and left. "Pass right shoulders" is fine for a morris dancer, but a surprising number of kids and adults have right/left confusion. Always use the words 'over' and 'under'.  Call "red ribbons go under green ribbons" rather than "red and green pass right shoulders"

6.  Make sure they can count to one and make a joke of it.  "Who can count to one?  Good.  Go under one and only one green ribbon"

7.  Be very aware of the commonest mistakes and be ready to pre-empt them the moment they start to happen.

8.  Develop the ability to watch the entire set of dancers, partly by watching the ribbon pattern at the top of the pole (where you will see if the pattern is correct) and partly by having an awareness of how everyone is moving and if anyone is out of pattern.  Do not be afraid to shout "Freeze" if you see a problem developing.

9.  Love your dancers, praise their every success and get the audience to applaud when they do something tricky.  Undoing a pattern is more tricky than doing it, so make sure the audience are aware of this and applaud the undoing as well as the doing.

10.  Work with live musicians if you possibly can, especially ones who are used to working with you.

I had a really good session on Saturday, with a mix of all ages and abilities.  They were wonderful.  Someone made one small mistake on undoing a plait, but they managed (by dint of each of them watching their own ribbons and how they were wrapped on the pole) to undo it without me needing to tell them anything other than to watch their ribbons and to let the slow dancers come to them rather than rushing too fast.  They managed not only to do it perfectly, but to do it in time to the music.  I was really chuffed with them.

Comments

[legionseagle]

Now, that's interesting. Because I do have left/right confusion (I don't have port/starboard confusion because that's an absolute related to the prow of the vessel, not a relative related to the position of some object that may or may not be me.) And at my primary school, where we had a Rose Queen ceremony which involved all the girls who had reached years of discretion 10&11) being a) attendants on the Queen (or "coloured ladies" as we were called - my parents were relieved it simply meant pink, primrose or pale blue dresses rather than blackface) b) maypole dancers; c) country dancers - the last two in sort of blue and white sailor suit things the school provided - I had no problems with the maypole dance, only limited issues with the coloured lady dance (which was a sort of Austenesque affair with silk handkerchiefs) and lots of issues with the country dance, and now you explain it that came down precisely to how they were taught.

[watervole]

With country dancing, one of the most important things is to start with timing. Get the kids clapping in time to the music, then get them to do actions every 8 beats, like standing up and sitting down.

This helps greatly with the timing of the dancers.

[pensnest]

This makes excellent sense - particularly the notion that it is the good ones who make things go wrong because they are ready to press on without taking the slower participants into account. And I'm not surprised that 'pass right shoulders' is confusing—I've been to enough barn dances to know how easily people get confused, even if they would normally know right from left without difficulty.

I remember very much enjoying the sword dancing you taught at Redemption. Once the basic ideas have made a firm place for themselves, it's not hard to put them in order and to see the pattern of what is wanted.

[watervole]

I absolutely love teaching longsword dancing. Teaching adults is incredibly rewarding. (Teaching kids is too, but you need a lot more time)

I'm hoping to do it again next Redemption. The patterns are what I love too.

[decemberleaf.livejournal.com]

This makes me want to come over and join in (and I think I actually could do it! :).

[eledonecirrhosa.livejournal.com]

Thoroughly agree with the bad teachers thing! Was at a ceilidh recently where the caller was rubbish, and even folk who knew some of the dances were getting confused.

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

Oooohhhh...and it LOOKED so easy...:-)