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In addition to the Week 1 ...Week 12 13 e-mails, there are invitations to the class dance and other events.
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Week 1
Hi!
My name is Dana Scott, and I'm the Coordinator for the Tech Squares
Spring 2007 class. We're glad you could come to our Fun Night a few
weeks ago and hope you'll join us this Tuesday, February 13th, for the first
night of class.
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You can find more information about Tech Squares on our website:http://www.mit.edu.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/activities/tech-squares/
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me.
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You can find more information about Tech Squares on our website:http://www.mit.edu.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/activities/tech-squares/
If you have any questions, or would like to be removed from this list,
don't hesitate to contact me.
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The definitions for all the calls that we have learned so far are
available on the Tech Squares website:http://www.mit.edu.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/~tech-squares/lessons/
Hard copies of these definitions are always available at the gate
table.
In addition, here are some links to different websites with animations:
http://www.tamtwirlers.org/tamination/http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp/~noriks/ENGLISH/English-Index3.htmlhttp://www.remus.dti.ne.jp/~jsda/sdtext/sdtext/basicpro-eng.html
And, as always, if you have questions or need help, feel free to ask
me, Bill, or any club member!
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We've learned a lot of material so far -- congratulations! If you
find that you are starting to have trouble with the calls and the pace
at which we teach, I encourage you to read over the call definitions
before clss. They can be found athttp://www.mit.edu.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/~tech-squares/lessons/
The pace of the class will not get any slower and the material will
not get easier. Remember, we are teaching the first two programs of
square dancing (Mainstream and Plus) in 13 weeks -- other clubs can
take almost a year. It's very important that you're comfortable with
the calls from the first few weeks, as the rest of the class will
build on them. It may turn out that our style and speed of class and
dancing is not for you. If you have concerns or need help, talk to
me.
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If you ever need to know where we're meeting, you can find all of that information here:
http://www.mit.edu.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/~tech-squares/schedules/
The "weekly schedules" link will show you where we are as far in advance as we know. There's also a link on the left sidebar to all of our schedules.
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NEFFA Festival! This is a giant yearly event put on by the New
England Folk Festival Association. It's not a Tech Squares event, but
there will be lots of other folk dancing and music events, and lots of
Tech Squares people will be there. You can find more information
about it at http://www.neffa.org/. If you're interested, find me on
Tuesday night and I can let you know more about it. If you'd like to
go but don't have a way to get there, I can also help you find a ride.
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49th annual New England Square and Round Dance Convention. NESRDC is
quite an experience, and since you will have finished Mainstream by
then, you can dance nonstop for 2.5 days if you so choose. Ted, Bill,
and Clark will be calling. Lots of Tech Squares people will be there.
You can find a limited amount of not-very-useful information athttp://www.nesrdc.org/. For more and more useful information, ask any
club member on Tuesday night. We'll talk more about Convention in
class meeting as the time gets closer, but rides and hotel rooms will
be arranged by a volunteer from the club if you'd like to be in on
them.
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Tech Squares is hosting a weekend-long dance event with an out of town
caller and cuers. I'm talking with the dance organizers now to see if
we can arrange to have some of the weekend be at class level. I will
keep you posted as I know more. For now, you can find information athttp://www.mit.edu.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/~tech-squares/schedules/weekends/may07.html.
I hope all the students had a relaxing spring break, and if you
celebrate Passover or Easter, enjoy your holiday! And please,
remember to do your taxes early so that you can come out and dance at
all these awesome events! (This means you, Bill.)
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In addition, remember that all of the weekly definition handouts are
available online. If you've missed a week, reading through the
definitions before class can be very helpful:
http://www.mit.edu.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/~tech-squares/lessons/
A few notes:
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1. Dancing backwards: I think this would be too dangerous, since no
one would be able to see where they were going. A similar but safer
idea would be to do "nose dancing." To do this, everyone turns one
wall left or right and then sticks their elbow out to make a "nose."
Then you dance the entire tip sideways from how you should be facing.
This is actually harder than going backwards, and by the way, you
can't really use hands. More information athttp://www.tiac.net/~mabaker/square-games.html (search for "nose
dancing"). Another idea is that Ted can ask dancers to "undo" the
previous call, which would be a little bit of backwards dancing
without total chaos. Or, on an undo, we could have everyone u-turn
back and walk backwards along the path of the call they just did.
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8. Gemini, tandem, or some combination: seehttp://www.tiac.net/~mabaker/square-games.html (search for "gemini").
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