Audio Tour Part 1 by JJason Recognition, rongo rongo
January 4th, 2008 4:53 AMThe third and final part of Rongo Rongo and my tasking took place at a strange place that Rongo Rongo brought me to, a square dance wedding party. I myself have never been square dancing, so it was all very strange. Rongo Rongo and I simultaneously phoned in our audio tours while standing outside the square dance wedding party looking in.
After that was completed, I bid Rongo Rongo farewell and disappeared into the night. I'd like to take this space here to thank Rongo Rongo for inviting me to come tasking and for a wonderful evening of nonstop, no-holds-barred tasking!
rongo rongo
We couldn't think of an obvious strange place that wouldn't be really cold, but JJason was cool with my suggestion that a wedding square dance might be strange to some people. I'd never tried using the phone SF0 method of generating audio files, and worried a bit about leaving a long-winded semi-coherent message, but gave it a try. (I just realized that this is the second task that I've done which is located at or near a wedding celebration of friends.)
MIT's square dancing club, Tech Squares, is one of the most active and hard-core square dancing clubs anywhere. They teach a class each semester that crams enough square dance calls into 13 weeks that graduates can dance at a level equivalent to people who have gone through 40 week classes somewhere else. By the end, you can do figures like the TEACUP CHAIN (definition all the way below). It's strange, but it's a lot of fun.
I enjoyed how JJason and my descriptions of the place were totally different. He was describing what he observed while I was describing what I know. It is interesting how knowing a place makes you not notice some things and experience everything differently.
Starting formation - square. During a teacup chain, all four ladies will move to each of the men in the square in turn, progressing in promenade direction. The call ends when they return to the man where they started. All ladies start with the right hand and alternate hands thereafter. Men use whatever hand is necessary so that the women can alternate hands.
The caller will designate the position from which the ladies move to the center, e.g., ``Head ladies center for a teacup chain.'' Whenever a lady reaches that position, she will move to the center, arm turn with her opposite lady 3/4 or 1 1/4 as necessary to reach the next man in sequence, and then arm turn with that man. The ladies in the other position (at the side position in the example above) move around the perimeter of the square to the next man and arm turn with him. This action repeats for a total of four times, with each lady alternating parts, i.e., alternating between arm turning with her opposite lady in the center and moving around the perimeter. The last arm turn, which would be by the left with partner, is replaced by a courtesy turn to end in a squared up set.
*And I wanted to add that I didn't mean to imply in my audio file that square dancing with a lot of retired people was necessarily undesirable---just that when the mean age is closer to 30 than to 70, you can dance a lot faster which means you can get more crazy with the flourishes on the figures, like running over to the adjacent square during a scoot-back, or hip-checking your corner during weave the ring.
** Here is a link to Craig Swanson's cartoon gallery.
Craig Swanson's square dancer cartoon
You can sometimes meet Craig (who has drawn cartoons seen on many hilarious T-shirts, such as "will press lever for food" and "Fermat's last theorem for 500 miles") at Tech Squares.
rongo rongo goes square dancing
Hi this is rongo rongo. I'm at an MIT square dance. This is not just a normal MIT square dance, but it's actually celebrating a wedding between Heather and Vadim. It's a little bit strange because you wouldn't think MIT is the Boston nexus of square dancing, but it is. The club is called Tech Squares, the caller's name is Ted, and he is the best square dance caller ever. An interesting thing about dancing at MIT is you often have more boys than girls, but luckily, most of them can play either part. It's also the place I've been to that has the most guys with really long hair, like butt-long hair. But I like squares because it's fun and crazy and people all smile and even when you mess up they're pretty nice to you. There's lessons here every semester for people who want to learn, and unlike many square dancing places there aren't that many retired people and everyone wears normal clothes instead of poofy dresses. So that's where I am, it's a little strange but I like it.
JJason doesn't go square dancing
So this is JJason and I'm on the fourth floor of the MIT lounge type building. We've got a white floor here, a yellow ceiling, a pot and a sort of a bunch of squares in the ceiling, square lights, there's pipes. And there's a large number of people who are performing some sort of an arcane dance. They're being led by this bald man standing on a stage. He's holding a microphone and he's saying strange commands in complex jargon I do not understand....throughout the area there are a bag of balloons, not a bag, a whole bunch of ballons on strings, there's speakers, there are coats on one wall, hanging from coat hangers predictably. There's a window that looks out onto MIT and Cambridge below. They all seem to be enjoying themselves so I wish them well. There's a lot of clapping involved, spinning around. They all seem to know what the jargon means, I don't, it's all very strange and confusing. There you are...
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I was telling someone at work about this task yesterday, and they were like "What's strange about a wedding square dance?"
jjason's delivery is awesomely hilarious. :)
Man, I loves me some square dancing.
I like that you can hear the clapping from the dance in the background.
I was surprised that the music wasn't more audible in the background, because it was fairly loud.
my suggestion that a wedding square dance might be strange to some people
Ha! And I´d thought this was "Antropologist from Mars".
Brb, I am going to arm turn with my opposite lady 3/4 or 1 1/4 as necessary to reach the next man in sequence, and then arm turn with that man.