[Squaredancing] National Convention trip report

[Clark Baker]

Having just returned from the National Convention in Portland, OR I
thought I would give you my impressions.

Having attended the last 3, Laura and I knew what to expect and how to
pace ourselves.  The attendance was slightly over 8000 with is in line
with recent conventions.

This year we stayed with friends and took public transportation back
and forth.  The weather was great and other than not being able to
return "home" and change for the evening we did fine.  We ere also
able to take the Tri-Met (light rail) from the airport to their house.
Portland has great public transportation.

The convention center was great.  I danced Mainstream, Plus, A1, C1,
C2, Contra, and Advanced Contra.  I also visited the exhibitors.  I
was aware of, but did not attend any rounds, seminars, panels, youth,
A2, C3, or exhibition dancing.  All of this was in the same building 
with
reasonable air conditioning.

The large halls had polished concrete which can be a killer but I had
proper shoes -- I had sneakers with good arch support and suede glued
to the bottom.  This also worked the small halls which started out
with masonite panels taped together on top of carpet and later changed
to carpet.

Sound isolation was perfect.  I found the sound some of the best we
have had.  In the large halls they used the house speakers!  These
were of high quality and gave continuous coverage from high in the
ceiling.  I often danced in the back or on the sides and had fine
sound.  There were a few callers who cracked the sound up too loud and
a few who used the music up/down knob too often and too aggressively.
However, the sound was very good.

It seemed to me that more "big name" callers supported this convention
than usual.  I noticed that the youth hall was able to snag some of
them which is a good thing.  While I didn't participate in the youth
hall this year, and while I have problems with some of the rules under
which it must be run, I understand that they did a great job this
year.

I spent a reasonable amount of time in the contra hall.  While I am a
big fan of contras, what is presented at the National Convention (and
at Callerlab) is not the same as I encounter at home (and in cities I
visit when I travel).  The National has to cater to dancers who may
not do contra very often, and to square dancers who wonder in to see
what it is all about.  This year there was no live music.  I often
fault the recorded music for not having strong phrasing and for being
played too fast.  We had some of these problems this year.  That said,
I was able to dance with lots of people new to contra, and did enjoy
the dancing I did.

I appreciated that this year we did not have the Contra 101, 201, and
301 teaching sessions.  In general contra is easy enough that I should
be able to bring any dancer to a contra dance and have them dancing
without lots of instruction.  Square dancers are used to instruction
and may be reluctant to dance without attending 101, 201, 301, etc.,
but this year showed that it isn't necessary.

Also this year we had 3 hours each night of advanced contra.
Attendance was at the threshold of critical mass, but the dancing we
did was fun.  I hope they schedule this again.  I also hope that they
can get some live music, perhaps in the evenings.  It would also be
great if there was some way to get contra dancers from the local
community to participate, perhaps charging them $10 per evening.

There were ~40 from Taiwan.  On the Wednesday evening trail end dances
there was no clogging and some of them only knew how to clog.  They
were welcome in the contra hall and we got many of them dancing.  We
saw them at other times during the convention.

Every night from 9-11pm I led Hexagon dancing in the back of the Plus
hall.  Having done this for several Nationals there are enough Hex
dancers that we can usually get enough.  Several times we had two
Hex's going at the same time (with Scott Byers leading the other hex).
New dancers are always welcome and we were able to incorporate several
new to hex.  Unknown to me, the convention scheduled a seminar on
Hexagon dancing at which they covered 3 forms of 6 couples in a
square.  When I poked my head in they had 5 or 6 hexs up.

In general the National is not able to allow visitors in to watch or
participate in our dancing.  Some years they offer visitor badges for
$10 (or so).  This year they had another Mainstream hall in the
skating rink inside a large mall (2 stops away on the light-rail (a
free ride)).  This allowed the public to watch us dance.  The one time
I was there they didn't have many dancers but I believe there were
other times when there was a large crowd.  I though this was a clever
solution to allowing the public to see us and at the same time cover
the insurance issues.

The other event open to the public was the watching the horses square
dance!  They had two squares of horses (western saddle) with riders
(partners wore matching western shirts) dancing a selection of
Mainstream and Plus calls.  In addition to the usual circle figures, I
remember swing thru, boys run, wheel and deal, and spin chain thru.
In addition they did a two square version of Venus And Mars stars.

 From 6-7pm each evening was Youth calling.  These kids from 8 (perhaps
younger) to 16 would each do a singing call and we probably had 15 of
them each night.  The support they received was outstanding and I
expect you will be hearing more about some of them in the future.

--
Clark Baker, Belmont, MA
cmbaker at tiac.net