Tech Squares: the square and round dance club of MIT

Call of the Month: December, 1991

...and roll

by Barry Leiba

The concept of rolling after a call is a simple one, and it can add a great deal of interest to a caller's choreography. It's occasionally a bit tricky, though, and we'll look at some cases where you need to think a bit.

Most of the time, you should not have to think at all about AND ROLL. The whole idea is that you continue your body flow and turn another quarter, so you don't have to reason it out. Once in a while, though, the caller might call the ROLL a bit late. In those cases, you have to remember which way you were turning, and turn another quarter in that direction. Then you can grumble at the caller. However, when it's not the caller's fault, what are some things that can make ROLL tricky?

First, some of our styling makes it tricky to ROLL. If you do a twirl, for instance, you have to be careful. Twirling usually amounts to turning in the opposite direction to the direction you're supposed to turn, and if you turn another quarter that way you'll be facing the wrong way. When you do your twirls, you have to keep in mind whether you're intentionally turning the wrong way, and if the callers adds a ROLL then you must adjust. You can do that either by checking your body flow and turning one quarter back the other way, or by continuing your twirl and turning three quarters more. Try it with a FERRIS WHEEL AND ROLL if you do the twirl in the middle. You should end up in two-faced lines, with the couples who started the FERRIS WHEEL winding up in tandem—not facing.

Second, if you turn the wrong way when you do the call, simply because you aren't sure which way to turn, then you'll have a problem. Some prime examples of this show up at the Advanced and Challenge levels with calls like OUTROLL CIRCULATE AND ROLL and CROSS AND TURN AND ROLL.

Sometimes a caller will use a ROLL to help the dancers recover when too many of them have made a mistake. For instance, several months ago, when I wrote about CUT THE DIAMOND, I gave an example of cutting a funny diamond, where the points tend to wind up facing in the wrong direction. In that case, CUT THE DIAMOND AND ROLL would always end with everyone facing the center (in starting double pass thru formation), so even the ones who got turned around would get fixed up by the ROLL.

Some calls have a ROLL as part of their definition. In the Challenge call REGROUP, the centers TRADE AND ROLL. The Advanced call SINGLE WHEEL, while not officially defined this way, can be thought of as HINGE AND ROLL.

Perhaps the trickiest are those calls where not everyone can ROLL. Remember that ROLL is a those who can call & if the last movement you made gave you circular body flow, you continue that flow another quarter. If it did not, you stay put! Try ZOOM AND ROLLfrom the standard ZOOM position, starting double pass thru. The centers loop back, the ends step forward. The original centers will ROLL and wind up back-to-back, but the original ends have just stepped straight forward into the center, and so they have no circular body flow. They do not ROLL.

SCOOT BACK AND ROLL is somewhat less obvious. Those facing out have the easy part—they RUN AND ROLL, facing the scooter next to them. The scooters EXTEND and TURN THRU. Even though they had circular motion when they turned with each other, the last motion they had was to step forward to finish the TURN THRU. They therefore do not ROLL.

Another tricky case is when some people finish their parts of the call sooner than others do. You always must base your roll on the last part that you did. So for SPIN CHAIN THRU AND ROLL, you start by turning half. Now for the dancers at the ends of the waves the call is over, and they can (and should) immediately ROLL to face in. The centers finish the call by casting three quarters, having the very center two trade, casting three quarters again, and ROLLing to face in & we end in starting double pass thru formation.

One final thing to remember: ROLL is a solo thing. Even if you're doing the call with someone else, you ROLL by yourself (as in the FERRIS WHEEL that we looked at above, or as in a ROLL after a COURTESY TURN). Now at Advanced or Challenge levels you might specifically be asked to ROLL as a couple, but the caller should then say as couples ROLL or individually ROLL if it needs clarification. Failing to do so is almost as bad as calling DO SA DO followed immediately by RECYCLE (my personal choice for the most egregious mistake a caller can make).

(Printable Version)

The columns are copyright ©1991, 1992, 1993, and 1994 by Barry Leiba; for permission to reprint them, please contact the author. No request has been refused yet. Of course, you may print a copy for personal use without specific permission. You may contact the author by e-mail at "leiba@watson.ibm.com".

These columns were originally sponsored on the web by the IAGSDC on space provided by Glyphic Technology. In 2006, Tech Squares took over hosting. Some information in the articles might be out-of-date: remember that Callerlab continues to tweak the program lists and definitions.