Square Footage per Contra dancer
Droid
comfortable dance? We are trying to size up various venues
and determine how big a dance they would hold.
If you can please email or post the size of your dance hall
and how many dancers you think it fits before becoming a mosh pit.
In San Francisco we have a hall that is 40 x 60 feet and is OK with
120 dancers. After that you start getting elbows in the ribs and such.
The San Rafael hall is 40 x 80 feet and can take 150 or so.
At both of these venues there is a stage so we don't loose space
with the band on the dance floor.
Carry on!
Marty Brenneis
Contra Roadie
marty at sparkology dot com
Greg McKenzie
> In San Francisco we have a hall that is 40 x 60 feet and is OK with
> 120 dancers. After that you start getting elbows in the ribs and such.
If 20 square feet per dancer is comfortable for contras I would also be
interested in square footage estimates for other formations, such as
squares or circle mixers. It has been said that contras are one of the
most "efficient" formations for using hall space. How much more
efficient are they than other formations?
I will try to get a measurement of our dance hall here in Monterey and
will get back to you after the weekend Marty.
Greg McKenzie
Mike Mudrey
mm
mc...@vms.cis.pitt.edu
the dance floor in front of the band was 20 ft accross.
They could fit 2 squares there, but it was very crowded. ("Circle left" was a
lot more like "Oval left", etc). Had the space fro a square been 10 X 10,
the dancing would be close to impossible.
That means that 8 dancers in a square would be very, VERY crowded in
100 sq ft (or about 12 sq ft per dancer).
12 ft by 12 ft would still be crowded, so that leads me to conclude that
for squares, 20 square ft per dancer is about right for a comfortable
upper limit, for rooms with the appropriate geometry. And I'd guess
that "comfortable" might even be an exaggeration.
Michael YOung
Pittsburgh, PA
David Kaynor
Hi Folks,
Friday night contra dances at the Guiding Star Grange Hall (2400 square
feet, 60' x 40') feel reasonably commodious with up to around 150 dancers.
Over that, we start feeling kind of crowded. Generally speaking,
space-consciousness seems quite good and people seem to adapt fairly well.
On First Saturdays, Wild Asparagus packs in upwards of 200 dancers.
Sometimes _way_ upwards. Whatever you've heard about the quality of the
actual contra dancing under those conditions, do bear in mind that they have
plenty of return customers. People keep coming back.
It reminds me that when a contra dance is really working, numbers like
square footage per dancer are only part of the equation of a good time.
Significant and worthy of discussion, to be sure...but still only part.
I think another factor in the equation is our ventilating system. The
fresh-air intake we put in some time ago really helps, and the exhaust
system, which is being installed right now, will make it a really
well-ventilated hall. Fresh, moving air can make a huge difference on a
crowded night, especially in the warmer months.
David Kaynor
Gloria Krusemeyer
years as the floors have gotten less crowded. I'm not sure what the trend
has been for contras.
Last summer Larry E. called a crazy pattern with a bunch of star-thrus which
was very difficult because the square kept spreading. Once we finally kept
the square tight enough, which was the normal floor conditions back when
that was being called originally, it was so much easier.
Two summers ago I danced in a building in Seattle that used to hold 20 +
squares back in the '60's and '70's. Same dance floor is now considered
unacceptably crowded when there are a dozen squares. I was there when there
were four to six squares on the floor and the hall felt comfortably filled -
room for more, but we weren't a few dancing in an empty hall. Sorry that I
don't have the actual dimensions.
All of this is a long winded way of saying that people need the amount of
space they're used to using, which varies over time and area.
A normal dance floor out east would be very crowded by Minnesota standards.
So most of our dancers swing less compactly. We tend towards higher kicks
and wider twirls - because there's usually space. When Wild Asparagus comes
to town the dance floor can be dangerous, because most of us just don't know
how to dance compactly.
It's not that we're thoughtless barbarians - there's just more space on the
dance floor, as well as between the towns.
Gloria Krusemeyer
Northfield, MN
bogus address
> A long time ago, at the Coal Country Convention, near Pittsburgh, the
> They could fit 2 squares there, but it was very crowded. ("Circle left"
> was a lot more like "Oval left", etc). Had the space fro a square been
> 10 X 10, the dancing would be close to impossible.
> That means that 8 dancers in a square would be very, VERY crowded in
> 100 sq ft (or about 12 sq ft per dancer).
I managed to get two eightsome reel sets into my 12' x 15' living room
once. And it had a mattress along one wall and a five-foot table
sticking out from another one. But that was in Glasgow and Glaswegians
never have made a clear distinction between a party and a sweat lodge.
Shetland reels are designed to fit in a typical Shetland kitchen (i.e.
very little space) since dancing outdoors is rarely sensible and there
were no community halls until very recently. Cape Breton (even worse
weather) is presumably the same.
========> Email to "jc" at this site; email to "bogus" will bounce. <========
Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760
http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/purrhome.html food intolerance data and recipes,
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Nancy Martin
"Gloria Krusemeyer" <danc...@charter.net> wrote in message
news:t7mdl0k...@corp.supernews.com...
> In MWSD, the choreography and dancing style has evidently changed over the
> years as the floors have gotten less crowded. I'm not sure what the trend
> has been for contras.
>
> Last summer Larry E. called a crazy pattern with a bunch of star-thrus
which
> was very difficult because the square kept spreading. Once we finally
kept
> the square tight enough, which was the normal floor conditions back when
> that was being called originally, it was so much easier.
Going on 20 years ago a bunch of us here in Vancouver (the real Vancouver in
Washington State, mind you) danced the Irish sets, polka sets and the like.
Our teacher made us dance at a furious pace and in very scrunched up
squares. Eventually we could dance all day and all night at parties and
survive to tell about it. But when we went to the ceili dances over in
Portland the same dances were exhausting because the people there insisted
on spreading out into comfortable roomy sets. Geez. Our guy once made a set
of us dance on a board the size of a card table. And blazing fast. Now that
was going too far. Ah, youth.
Bill Martin
Mike Mudrey
sets, keep movements small and you can dance all night. Another secret for
irish sets is to take the movement in you ankles, not in the knees..it helps
to keep the movements tight.
In the summer we usually have a picnic, set dance in Milwaukee at someones
house. The floor consists of two 4X8 sheets of plywood for each set..hence 64
square feet for eight dancers. works great!
mm
Gloria Lenon
the halls that have a rise in the center or slant? And everyone ends up on
one side or towards one wall? Now, that's a challenge!
Gloria Lenon
Florida!!!!