MayMadness 2006

You would think that on a one-hour, nonstop flight between Albuquerque and Phoenix, it would be difficult to lose a suitcase. Yet there I was on May 19, standing at the Southwest Lost Luggage desk, saying, “but my outfits and dance shoes are in that suitcase and I have to be on stage tonight.” A further complication was that the dance weekend was two hours away in Prescott, Arizona.

This was the 15th annual MayMadness dance weekend, http://sharlot.org/madness/ I’d been preparing for several months to entertain 250 dancers, along with caller Seth Tepfer of Atlanta, the Hotpoint String Band from Ohio, and the Privy Tippers from Tucson, Arizona.

I did at least have the foresight to carry my dance program onboard, plus fudge and pecan cookies for the bands. So I wasn’t entirely up the proverbial creek with no paddle. But my toothbrush was in that suitcase!

One of the Tippers and I drove up to Prescott, checked in and went over to the dance hall. Banners were up in the giant gymnasium, and the sound crew was doing sound checks. I had nothing to unpack, so hung around the hall and did a sound check. My first introduction to Seth was when he walked into the dance hall as I was asking for a mike condom (that gray foam thing that fits over the microphone head). Well, what else is it called?!

A bunch of us crew and organizers walked to a Chinese restaurant for dinner, where Seth and I chatted briefly about how to run the Saturday morning waltz workshop: I wanted to be Vanna White to his lead. Southwest called to tell me my suitcase had NOT gone on to California as originally thought, but instead never made it onto the plane in Albuquerque. They would send it on a later flight, then drive it up to Prescott on the shuttle. Seth called fun dances the first half of the Friday night dance with Hotpoint. I was on at 9:30 with the Tippers. Someone reported from the hotel that my suitcase was in town, but when I walked over, no such luck. I went back to dance, still in my airplane clothes. My suitcase arrived a few minutes before I was due on stage, so I was wrinkled, but ready, teeth brushed.

The Tippers, Jacquie Wohl on fiddle, her longtime hubby Craig Tinney on guitar, JerryRay Weinert on bass, and Dave Firestine on mandolin, and I have done half a dozen gigs. We love working together. But if I could leave my body and float off to observe myself on stage, directing 250 dancers and a band, I’m sure I would run screaming out of the dance hall. Calling is not for sissies. You are teacher, cuer, band director, programmer, stage personality, and trouble-shooter, sometimes simultaneously. All of this happens in the space of 32 seconds, which is about one time through the AABB structure of the dance tune. Yikes! It looks easy if all goes well, but it’s not as easy as it looks. To borrow from a “Futurama” episode where Bender plays god, “When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.”

I called an intermediate program, Swell Dance, Seth’s dance Will You Marry Me?, Kathy Anderson’s Weave the Line, Bob Isaacs’ Cure for the Clap, Pinewoods Crossing, Gene Hubert’s Firecracker, and Carol Ormand’s You Can’t Get There from Here. Teaching and calling seven dances in an hour and a half is pretty amazing for me–we did quick walk-through’s and I didn’t run dances too long given the heat and altitude (mile high). I watched how well the dancers danced and thought, “Ut, oh, I have nothing to teach them tomorrow in my workshops.”

What was especially cool was having 10 New Mexicans out on the dance floor egging me on. Lonnie, Julie, Chole and Judy showed up from Las Cruces. Bob & Linda, Joli, Larry, Laine, and Chris showed up from Albuquerque. Their smiling faces buoyed me all weekend.

My Beloved Privy Tippers
Tippers & Merri, Photo by Lonnie Ludeman (c) 2006

At the catered breakfast the next morn, I randomly wandered and asked dancers for their ‘pet peeves’ on the dance floor. “Twirling me out of the line,” “bending my wrist back so it hurts,” “avoiding eye contact,” “not being there on time.” Voila! I had the makings of a workshop. First Seth called a “hot squares” workshop, then we co-taught the waltz workshop. Actually, I was Vanna, chipping in occasionally and walking around observing frame and posture and heart to heart alignment. Seth taught the step, framing, turns, and a ‘pause’ to accent the dance. At the end a dancer came up to me and asked, “do you know how to do that waltz pivot step?” “Sure,” I said, “It’s like a zwiefacher, waltz, 2, 3, waltz, 2, 3, pivot, pivot, pivot, pivot.” I danced this move with him and his eyes gleamed. “YES! That’s what I wanted to remember. Thanks!” Later that day a friend and I did that same move, adding a ‘pause’ at the end of the pivots. What fun! A new combo move!

We had a catered lunch for everyone at the dance hall. Then it was my turn to work with Hotpoint, who played for both of my afternoon workshops. The first one, Timing is Everything, Better Never Than Late, I started with some of the pet peeves I’d gathered earlier that morning. I had everyone close their eyes and clap on the #1 beat of music. No cheating! Clapping was scattered until everyone settled into the music. Then I had them, depending on their birth months, dance early, on time, and late, so they could all feel the jaggedness of discordance. It’s hard for good dancers to dance badly, so I suspect this was a challenge for many, to deliberately dance off time. When the tune switched, all danced on time. I polled them to see which way they enjoyed more. After that came a few more dances to accentuate and practice the timing of various moves.

The second workshop was Dancing Transcendently, no NOT transcendentally! People thought we were going to meditate, so I read them the workshop description to make my goals more clear. “Nuance is the key to making dance sublime. Sometimes the art of dancing can be lost in all the twirls, flourishes, and rowdiness. This dance workshop will focus on making you stand up, stretch out, lean back and discover an elegance, grace, and beauty you never knew you had.”

My calling teacher, Bill “Doc” Litchman, laments that we are losing the “art of dance” or the “elegance of dance.” So I sometimes teach workshops to remind people just how beautiful dance can be with gentle leads, small flourishes, flows, and treating each partner like a queen or king, if only for 32 seconds. I talked to them about the yoga principle of standing as if a string is coming up out of the crown of one’s head. This causes one’s shoulders to move back and the body to rise, creating a grace of movement akin to that found in English dance. And most important, it opens one’s heart to the joy of the music, infusing the dancer with an even greater connection to the band. I forgot to tell the dancers this last, most important point. I used four dances to illustrate these principles, Evan Shepherd’s Wedding Rings, Kathy Anderson’s Tropical Gentleman, Tony Parkes’ Hey Fever, and Tom Hinds’ Scooter.

Hotpoint is a master at choosing just exactly the right set of tunes for a particular dance, so the music for both workshops was wonderful. It is quite a treat for me to work with national caliber bands, such as Hotpoint. Members include Mark Burhans on fiddle, Hilarie Burhans, QUEEN (no kidding) of the banjo, Marlene Shostak on piano, Nick Wieland on bass, and wild man Mark Hellenberg on multiple percussion.

It is because of Hotpoint’s piano player Marlene that I am on the bigger stages at all. She heard me call one dance at a workshop in Houston in January 2003. The workshop allowed “baby callers” to call a dance with the “big band.” I called Don Flaherty’s Slapping the Wood. At the end, Marlene jumped off the stage, ran over to me, and exclaimed, “You’re no baby caller! That was great!! Who are you?” Until that moment, I never saw myself as worthy of the big stage, but something about Marlene’s willingness to take the time to make a kind remark, set me on my way. An Austin dance organizer was there too and hired me to teach a workshop and call an evening dance in Austin in September 2003. Based on that performance, Austin hired me to call my first dance weekend in November 2004, the 8th annual Fire Ant Frolic, with Rodney Miller and Airdance playing. I probably prepared over 100 hours for that gig, with the helpful, and infinitely patient, email and telephone coaching of Becky Hill and David Millstone. My essay about Austin and Airdance is now over 7,000 words and not yet complete. Suffice it to say, the weekend with Airdance made the “top ten best moments of my life” list.

Back to Prescott…by then it was 5 p.m., and a bunch of us were going out to dinner. Back at the hotel, I realized I had no energy left to sit up and interact with more people at dinner, so I begged Seth to bring me carry out, and I lay down for a while. This turned out to be smart. After scarfing spicy ginger chicken, Thai style, I walked across to the hall. I was on first with the Tippers Saturday night.

Callers live for moments of magic, yet can’t plan to make magic happen. Once I stood on stage with a classical violist from Bolivia, Willy Sucre. He had just come from playing Handel’s Messiah for 3 hours, and wanted to end the night doing something fun. So he stood in with Gemma DeRagon and friends. He wasn’t familiar with the music, but he listened, then started improvising right beside me. The hair stood up on my arms, and I marveled at how the music energized the dancers. Magic. Another time I taught the Mennonite group how to do contra corners (don’t tell them it’s hard) in three-couple sets (a relatively safe formation). A 6-year-old girl, now in her 20s, picked it right up, and was beaming as she did a full contra corners with her sixsome. Magic.

That first half of Saturday night’s dance felt magic to me. The dancers could do no wrong. The Tippers’ tunes were scintillating. We started with a triple medley, no walk through. We never looked back. We did the Devil’s Backbone, Eleanor’s Reel, a triple progression, A Rollin’ and A Tumblin’, Sicilian Gypsy, and Trip to Phan Reel. The dancers performed everything flawlessly. The band played Music for a Found Harmonium, Dancing Bear, and other driving tunes. Magic. Then Seth and Hotpoint were on, and all hell broke loose. Hotpoint is so dynamic and rhythmic, it’s hard not to go wild. Seth called one of my dances “Convolution,” that I had never danced before. It was chaotic, and I thought maybe I should take it off my web site. Later I figured out a little fix and wrote a new, even more convoluted version. One of the dancers said it was his favorite dance of the weekend. He must enjoy chaos. :-)

Sunday morning Seth and I decided to reward the dancers with a program quickly accessible to the dancers, then get out of their way and let them connect to the music. My flow session featured Al’s Safeway Produce, the Dreaded Swing (photo below), Eyes Have It, and Venus and Mars. Seth then connected them to their inner klutz with gender benders and other fun games. Both Seth and I called the farewell dance with Hotpoint, sharing a medley of three dances with no walk through’s. We ended with Smooth Sailing and Daisies and Delphiniums. And the 15th annual Maymadness came to a reluctant end.

The Dreaded Swing
The Dreaded Swing, Photo by Merri Rudd (c) 2006

The MayMadness organizers, Terri Eichelberger, Steve Appel, Warren Miller, Leslie Loomis, and countless others, put on a welcoming, riveting weekend with great music, dance, and food. They deserve the dancers’ adoration and praise.

Seth and I headed back to Phoenix with Bill and Judy Norman, sharing stories and laughter. We ate a big Ethiopian dinner, then flew our separate ways. My suitcase, of course, made it home just fine.

Twenty-five photos of the weekend’s events and players are posted at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/merridancing/sets/72057594143467958/

This is my full report. Let me know what you think.

Merri Rudd
www.merridancing.com

2 thoughts on “MayMadness 2006”

  1. Sounds like “May Madness” was “Dance Happiness”. Loved your report of the magic. Your mention of yoga prompted me to take a deep breath in and let the vertebrae in my spine line up like a string of pearls as I begin my workday here in New Hampshire. Keep on dancin’ Mer…Love always, r2

  2. I read with much interest your report of the May Camp in Prescott. I really enjoyed the paragraph about the elegance of dancing and the connection with your partner. One does not know how neat that is until one has danced with the Calico and Boots group from Boulder, Colo. The lady is treated with grace and eye contact is very important within the group and it is a very special feeling of connection. It is difficult to go to a contra dance in Alb. as you are jerked around by the men who just love to give that extra twirl or two after a ladies chain or a right and left through. There is absolutely no connection with any partner. It is so sad to see such roughness, high kicks and terrible sounding stomping. Just something to think about!

Comments are closed.