Hold on. What does he mean drive? And how come he’s having trouble remembering where to go? Has he moved? Have they moved to a new practice hall? Or is it the early stages of mental decay? Well it’s none of these – except maybe a little bit of the last one. Let me explain. Summer is a time when a hot stuffy hall is not the ideal place to be leaping about dancing. So come June and July we take to the great outdoors and hold our practice nights at local pubs. This also has the added benefit of saving us some money on the hall hire! Always remembering to let the hall committee know that we’ll be back in the autumn of course.
The benefits of this are several and various. First of all getting out of the hall introduces the newer dancers to the idea of wobbly flagstones, odd shaped and sized dance areas, the hazards of flying debris and of course an audience. The flying debris factor is not that severe usually but I have a particular phobia about foil crisp packets that are better than an oil slick if you hit one mid stride!
The audience is usually a variable factor given that our practice night is a Monday when the world tends to stay indoors but changing the night would tilt the world on it’s axis so we live with it. However if the team publicity machine is working we can usually guarantee a small but appreciative crowd and at the regular venues we almost know the crowd by name; and no that does not mean there’s only one of them! If we are out in full rig then the session also lets the newer dancers find out which bits of the kit need pinning, pegging or nailing down; and which bits are most easily forgotten when rushing out of the house.
Given the relaxed atmosphere we can also take a few risks that we would usually avoid at a higher profile event. For example giving new dancers a chance to perform their most recently learnt dance or as a team including a new dance that’s just been hovering at the edge of the performance repertoire. There is usually one dance every season that works well in the hall but is always “too new” to risk at a festival or a pukka display spot. So the pub night is a half way house were we can lay this particular ghost to rest.
Now this all sound fine in theory but after a while we found that finding good venues for the whole summer was a bit testing. And then for some dancers being out in full rig for a weekend and a practice night was a bit of a hassle so we introduced the “casual” dance out. These are from the viewpoint of the dancers, pretty much standard practice nights they just happen to be held at one of our local pubs. It’s always the same pub and happens to be the home of one of the local sessions. These casual nights alternate with the full rig nights.
There is also a bit of psychology in this. When we’re out doing full displays people come up and show an interest in dancing. But they never get round to plucking up the courage to get down to the practice hall in the autumn. So our theory is that by appearing at the same place over a few weeks and in “casual” mode some of these folk might just drop by for a drink to see what it’s all about. If they like what they see then we can grab them before they change their mind. If the idea does not appeal they can sup up and depart without any commitment.
Of course the down side to these events is that the weather can scrub out the whole evening; but it’s only happened once so far. Light rain we deal with as a matter of course since that’s a “real” event and we could never re-create that in the hall! The other main factor is failing light, which means we have to finish a bit earlier than usual. But this leaves more time for that other vital element of a practice night; the social interaction – or gossip. And it is really a vital element because the dancing is what we do; it’s the interaction of the dancers with each other that makes us a team.
So as the light fades the team start to drift off. As August approaches much of the talk will be of holidays, exotic locations, folk festivals or just taking a break. So come August we’ll wind down and spend most of our Mondays doing something other than dancing. Though there will be some time spent thinking about what dances need to be pulled back into the repertoire, maybe some research to find a traditional dance to add to the repertoire or even a new dance that the team can “own”. Then come September we can start the cycle all over again! The same old pattern but always just a little bit different.