allow the creation of new forms that have more complex results by breaking the symmetry created by always having to refer to the left- or right-starting individuals as an indivisible set
Today callers do this by adding “1st” or “2nd”: the “1st Lark” is the Lark in each couple that is going down the hall, and the “1st Robin” is the Robin in each couple that’s going up the hall. If they want to refer to the whole couple they say “1s” or “2s”, as in “1s lead down between the “2s”.
Quick technicality (you can ignore this if you don’t care): the “robins and larks” scheme is still gendered, though it has the advantage of divorcing dance genders from social genders.
While this might be technically correct (ex: Filipino has two linguistic genders, common and neuter) this is different enough from how most people speak about gender in dance that I think it’s actively unhelpful?
In normal use:
Gendered calling: using male words for the Lark/Gent/Left-side dancer and female ones for the Robin/Lady/Right-side dancer. “Ladies chain”, “Men by the left”, “Ladies, leave him there”.
Gender-free calling: using names for the roles that are unrelated to male/female. At this point, almost everywhere does Larks/Robins, but there’s a bit of Leads/Follows.
Positional calling: not referencing roles at all. Theoretically within “gender-free calling”, but it’s rare to see it used that way.
Today callers do this by adding “1st” or “2nd”: the “1st Lark” is the Lark in each couple that is going down the hall, and the “1st Robin” is the Robin in each couple that’s going up the hall. If they want to refer to the whole couple they say “1s” or “2s”, as in “1s lead down between the “2s”.
While this might be technically correct (ex: Filipino has two linguistic genders, common and neuter) this is different enough from how most people speak about gender in dance that I think it’s actively unhelpful?
In normal use:
Gendered calling: using male words for the Lark/Gent/Left-side dancer and female ones for the Robin/Lady/Right-side dancer. “Ladies chain”, “Men by the left”, “Ladies, leave him there”.
Gender-free calling: using names for the roles that are unrelated to male/female. At this point, almost everywhere does Larks/Robins, but there’s a bit of Leads/Follows.
Positional calling: not referencing roles at all. Theoretically within “gender-free calling”, but it’s rare to see it used that way.