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Everyone had a great time - with rave reviews from experienced dancers as well as burners who'd never contradanced. But how could it have been otherwise, with two stellar bands - Perpetual e-Motion and Noreaster, and three excellent callers - Tara Bolker, Dave Eisenstadter and Tracy Wilkins.
Alas we were too busy to take much video and most of what we did get was marred by microphone wind noise. and the low light levels. We never got any video on the two evenings when we were up to two lines of dancers.
From a dancers perspective, it was not as dark as it seems in the video - I have danced in many halls where it was darker. (The dancers I talked to liked our lighting - one called it 'magical.)
All in all our first year was a great success - despite the fact that we started a day late, and were 'advertised' at the wrong location by Burning Man management. We had one evening with just a concert and four nights with dancing.
We liked it so much we want to do this every year into the indefinite future. And next time will be infinitely easier: a local company is storing an international shipping container with all our stuff - the dance floor, carpet, chairs, tables, bikes, tents, lighting and sundry. Next year it will all be waiting for us in our camp, and the shipping container will double as the backdrop and locker for the bands.
I will drive my truck and trailer out one more time with salvaged wood that will turn into a disassemblable stage for the musicians that will be stored with everything else. (The trailer was the stage this time.) From 2012 on, I will hopefully be able to fly or carpool.
We had planned to use video material to supplement the teaching of the different contradance moves, but got only so far as seeing that it will probably work well next time. The software is an open source sinatra app and can be found here: http://github.com/contraburn/ProjectorInterface .
Many thanks to an anonymous and exceedingly generous benefactor and who made it possible to pay the expenses for a second band, and to rent a moving truck, and thanks to others who supplied or loaned shade structures.
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