In each of the other Cracking Chestnuts columns we have described a particular dance. This column is different. Here we consider the question of whether presenting a chestnut requires any particular skills or attitudes from a caller.

Here's one possible (and somewhat flip) answer to the question of how to call a chestnut:

"You don't have to; everyone already knows the dance!"

In fact, there are communities where traditional favorites are quite familiar, and newer dancers learn them from the regulars more than from a caller. The caller only needs to say, "The next dance will be Lamplighter's Hornpipe!" and perhaps grunt now and again to cue where the balances fall in the music. I have experienced this as a dancer. When I first went to dances as a teenager in the 1960s, I remember not understanding a word of what the caller said. The other dancers gave me my clues. I also remember going to a very exciting traditional dance in Nova Scotia one summer. Everyone there knew all the dances, except for me of course. The other dancers cheerfully moved me from one place to another. The caller would shout something completely incomprehensible into his microphone, and everyone would do something! Next he would yell something equally opaque, and they'd all do something else! It was dazzling.

There are also traditional ways to call these dances that go beyond squawks and hollers. One especially effective technique is a sort of chant that grows up around many of the traditional tunes. Versions of Petronella seem to acquire such chants easily, because of the repetitive nature of the first figure: "Around to your right and you balance," and wait four counts and repeat. Or another version uses the chant: "Quarter round and up and down," alternating with "quarter round and face across." Many dancers fondly remember a Money Musk chant: "Right to your own and turn. Go once and a half around, once and a half and you go below. Below one couple and it's forward six." And so forth, all in a three or four note chant that sort of follows the contours of the traditional tune. When such chanting is done well, the calls become thoroughly integrated with the music. Extending this idea of chanting the calls a bit, adding more words and some rhyme, the style sometimes begins to resemble square dance patter. A good example of this patter-like style can be found in Northern Junket, where Ralph Page presents a version of Lady Walpole's Reel much as he would call it at an evening dance.

But none of these techniques is "required." Do not feel that you need to have a particular style before plunging into this beloved repertoire.

The larger question today is not how to call chestnuts in traditional communities, but how to introduce or reintroduce traditional dances in communities where they are no longer the norm. Here, rather than not needing to call at all, the problem is reversed. The caller must teach and call as well as possible to advocate for dances that are unfamiliar, including proper dances, contras in triple minor formation, dances that involve different (and often unequal) roles for the first and second couples, and dances that require dancers to "use up the music" in such figures as a well-phrased right and left four. We do not pretend to have all the answers, but here are some thoughts that we hope you can use as a starting place:

1. Employ your most upbeat approach. We like chestnuts because they are fun, not because they are good medicine. Do not apologize to those benighted dancers who complain about a dance because they feel it doesn't have enough swinging in it. Instead point out the opportunities it does have.
2. Resolve to use chestnuts regularly to add variety to your programs. Make difference an advantage instead of a disadvantage. Many of the older dances include intriguing patterns that involve the whole community. Many have unusual and clever story lines or engaging symmetry. Some chestnuts offer a chance to move elegantly, others are quite vigorous. Some are quirky; some are simple.
3. Choose chestnuts strategically. Do not overwhelm a group with too many dances that are too unfamiliar in style. You know your group best. Choose one or two that you think they are most likely to enjoy. Expand gradually.
4. Repeat chestnuts. They have gained their polish through long repeated use, and your dancers will come to love the sense of recognition and comfort that is inspired by a dance that comes around again and yet again. Your goal is to create a culture in which your regulars can teach the chestnut to the newcomers, or where many of them could call Chorus Jig on the night the caller has a flat tire and shows up thirty minutes late.
5. Encourage your local musicians to learn the old tunes. Part of what makes many of the dances feel like old friends is their strong association with certain tunes.
6. Learn each dance thoroughly before presenting it, so that you can teach it exceptionally well. This is true for any dance you might use, not just our favorite chestnuts. However, the precept is more important still if you hope to show dancers how much there is to enjoy about an older dance style that is less familiar to them.
7. Try to learn a bit about the rich background of the dances. In addition to knowing how to teach Hull's Victory superbly, if you are able to pull it out on an August evening to commemorate the historic naval battle, you have an extra something to offer your dancers.
8. Consider offering special workshops, dress up evenings, or other chestnut oriented events upon occasion. Advertising such events will bring in chestnut enthusiasts from far and wide, and their infectious interest and knowledge will further promote these wonderful old dances.

Whatever you do, please do not forget the finest of our old dances. There is not one right way to include chestnuts; there are dozens of right ways. Find your way to insinuate a chestnut into regular evenings, one-night stands, or special workshops. Use the chestnuts. They are living, breathing dances, not museum pieces. And they have so much to offer that you will be amply repaid.