I'm curious about why Lead and Follow language is being used here. Personally, I believe that gives folks the wrong idea about contra dancing. Neither role leads and neither role follows. I say this having danced both roles for many years.
We chose these terms to keep this resource as accessible as possible. The audience for this resource is mainly contra dance organizers, instructors, and callers, so we used terms that are clearly understandable *without* alienating anybody who has strong negative feelings about either of the other options. Since this is a technical document that is really only interesting or comprehensible to dancers, representing contra to non-dancers was not a priority; there were pros and cons to all the options but in the end we went with just one for consistency.
I think there are actually lots of benefits to lead and follow language, but that's for another post!
I'm curious about why Lead and Follow language is being used here. Personally, I believe that gives folks the wrong idea about contra dancing. Neither role leads and neither role follows. I say this having danced both roles for many years.
We chose these terms to keep this resource as accessible as possible. The audience for this resource is mainly contra dance organizers, instructors, and callers, so we used terms that are clearly understandable *without* alienating anybody who has strong negative feelings about either of the other options. Since this is a technical document that is really only interesting or comprehensible to dancers, representing contra to non-dancers was not a priority; there were pros and cons to all the options but in the end we went with just one for consistency.
I think there are actually lots of benefits to lead and follow language, but that's for another post!
-Christin