Steve and I have been talking lately about the differences between the experiences of larger dance weekends and smaller ones. While we've had lots of fun at small weekends and big ones alike, a lot of the conversation has been about how they really are different experiences. Sure, they both include lots of contra dancing and seeing old friends and making new one and having new stories to tell, and both can be lots of fun. But there are also differences that make the two experiences different. For instance, at larger weekends:
Anyone else have something to add to that list? (We'll be talking about smaller weekends on Monday.)
- You get to see lots and lots of people you might normally not see because they're usually geographically separated -- bigger weekends tend to draw people from lots of different locales.
- There are lots of different choices of what to do at a given time during the day -- if you're too tired to dance, you can go listen to folks jamming down the hall.
- You get opportunities to dance with new partners all the time.
- Frequently, the bigger festivals/weekends encompass other dance and song forms as well -- blues, morris, shape note singing, swing dancing, and Appalachian clogging are examples of other sessions I've seen at bigger weekends.
- It can be difficult to get a dance with a particular partner you don't get to see because "find me" may not be a successful strategy amongst several hundred people on-site. But you do to dance with lots of other people.
Anyone else have something to add to that list? (We'll be talking about smaller weekends on Monday.)
