SCVSDA General Dance Program

GDP/Mainstream Conversion Lists

26 August 2014

Note: This page has been adapted from the corresponding page of the original proposal. It has been updated to reflect the revised GDP list adopted in August 2014.

A frequent concern about the introduction of a local dance program is that it may present problems for dancers who travel -- that dancers who learn this program won't be able to dance elsewhere, and that visitors from other areas won't be able to dance here.

Before discussing the details of what would be involved for a dancer who already knows Mainstream to learn GDP and vice versa, it is important to understand that this issue would come up with any list that isn't widely used. If we had adopted the ACA "One Floor" program, or the Rio Grande Valley "Club Level 50" list, as a way to make square dancing easier to learn in our area, the same kind of problems would arise. The developers of those lists hoped and have advocated for them to become widely used, but in fact this has not happened. So the chances that somebody visiting or moving from an area using one such non-standard list to another would find the same list is pretty small.

It's also important to understand why this would seem to be a new issue for us. Dancers who learn in this area historically have not had this problem when they go elsewhere because we taught everybody Plus. All of the smaller lists, including Mainstream, are subsets of Plus. However, in the other direction we historically did have this issue but we thought about it in different terms. If a dancer who only knows Mainstream and has been happily dancing Mainstream elsewhere came to our area, he or she simply wouldn't have found anywhere to dance on a regular basis. We just dismissed this with an "oh well, they don't know Plus". But there is no practical difference between such a dancer and one who might come from an area where people were happily dancing the ACA or Rio Grande lists -- they would all find themselves in a situation where the gap between what they know and our "club level" (Plus) is so large that they (and we) wouldn't even attempt to bridge it on a short term basis or make any other special provisions for them. If they are moving here permanently, we would expect them to just join a Plus class.

Introducing GDP into our area hasn't created a new problem for anybody who is currently dancing either Mainstream or Plus. Yes, it will create a new category of dancers (those who have learned only GDP) who won't be able to dance elsewhere -- but almost all of those people wouldn't be dancing anywhere, outside of a class setting, without GDP. And the people coming from Mainstream areas now have a problem that may seem like it is due to the differences between Mainstream and GDP -- but without GDP they would have faced the even greater problem of the differences between Mainstream and Plus. If they are moving here permanently they will probably still want to learn Plus, but having GDP will actually make it easier for them to start dancing in our area, because they will have a place to dance without learning all of Plus, while they are learning the rest of Plus.

Converting a Mainstream Dancer to a GDP Dancer

A Mainstream dancer isn't ready to dance GDP because GDP includes some Plus calls. All the rest of GDP is taken from the Basic and Mainstream lists, so a Mainstream dancer will already be familiar with them. The following are the additional calls that an experienced Mainstream dancer would need to learn:

Diamonds: Circulate and Cut
Load the Boat
Ping Pong Circulate
Roll
Single Circle to a Wave
Track 2

This is probably too much for an average visitor to want to learn just to dance one dance, but it's possible to imagine giving a particularly smart and enthusiastic visitor a "crash course" on these calls in an hour or so before a dance, which would probably be enough to allow them to survive that dance. And while the migration rate into our area from Mainstream areas is nowhere near high enough to justify scheduling anything on a regular basis, if even a few people from Mainstream areas happened to move here around the same time (perhaps even just one family), it might make sense to arrange a special class for them. Either a few evenings or one weekend day should be enough time for such a "class" to bring competent Mainstream dancers up to the GDP level. A shorter workshop (one full evening) combined with sufficient opportunity to practice the additional calls immediately thereafter (e.g., at Jubilee) should also work for dancers who are already familiar with all the Mainstream calls.

Converting a GDP Dancer to a Mainstream Dancer

There are more calls involved in this direction because GDP is a smaller program than Mainstream. GDP dancers who go on to Plus, either by taking a class intended for that purpose or by joining a traditional zero-to-Plus class, will of course at the same time be learning what they need to know to dance Mainstream. But if somebody who was already an experienced GDP dancer wanted to be able to dance Mainstream elsewhere, these are the additional calls he or she would need to learn:

Dosado to a Wave
Wrong Way Promenade
Star Promenade
Wrong Way Grand
Half Sashay
Backtrack
Separate Around ... to a Line / and come into the middle
Split Two
Two Ladies Chain 3/4
Chain Down the Line
Do Paso
All Around the Corner / Seesaw
Left Square Thru
Circle to a Line
Dive Thru
Wheel Around
Thars, incl. Slip the Clutch, Shoot the Star
Box the Gnat
Couples Trade
Balance
Left Swing Thru
Cross Run
First/Next Couple Go Left/Right
Turn Thru
Eight Chain Thru
Couples Hinge
Centers In
Dixie Style to a Wave
Spin Chain Thru

Under most circumstances, there are unlikely to be enough GDP dancers wanting to dance outside our area to justify making any special provisions for them. The dancers who are most likely to be interested in dancing elsewhere are for the most part the same ones who are going to be interested in learning Plus, which will make this not an issue for them. However a special class of this sort might make sense in some particular case, for example if a group of GDP-only dancers wanted to attend a national or state convention and be able to dance in the Mainstream hall there. Note that many of the calls listed above are low-usage variations of calls with which a GDP dancer will already be familiar, so they will be relatively easy to learn but hard to get much practice on outside of a Mainstream dance. Such a conversion class would therefore be most effective if it were held immediately prior to such a convention, with the class serving to introduce the calls and the convention then providing most of the practice. A one-time (or annual) class could probably accomplish this purpose in about 5 evenings.

[GDP main page]
[SCVSDA home page]