I've seen folks start a lot of dances. Some worked, some didn't.
I went to a waltz night last night that, I'd guess, had 50 dancers on the floor a sound system, and a live band. That's a success. I've also been to square dances that had three squares -- again, live music -- and were also a success. One, last year, was in downtown Portland, Oregon, in a little upstairs room above a natural foods store; another was in Left Hand Grange #9, in Niwot, Colorado, at the beginnings of the local Boulder/Denver dances, which grew into what I went to last night.
For a couple of years, there was a dance in Denver, near the Denver University campus. It had a government subsidy, a community full of young folks, and a big supply of seasoned dance musicians. It could draw on lots of nearby, dance-organizing experience and a flock of dancers from nearby dances, many eager to come to a new dance.
One of the dances I played there had more people on stage, in the band, than on the dance floor.
What was the difference? Why do some enterprises succeed and some fail?
A Pied Piper.
The Westminster Dance is a first-rate example. A decade or so ago, Vicky Bunsen and I went to a one-shot, Cajun dance in a little, grange hall in old-town Westminster. As we walked in, Vicky looked around and said, "This is a perfect place to have dances."
Vicky had started playing fiddle a year or so before, and been hosting a weekly, beginner's jam in her living room because she wanted folks to play with. She wanted to play dances, but the established, local dances weren't about to book her. She wasn't even close to the skill level they were used to.
So?
She started one. She had a house band: hers. She knew a beginning caller who was just as happy to jump on the opportunity as her beginning musicians. She'd found a hall. Now all she needed was dancers.
She invited everyone she worked with. She got them to invite everyone they knew. She worked in Westminster, so she invited everyone she ran into.
The first dance filled. The band was imperfect, the caller imperfect, and the dancers imperfect. Everyone had fun and the dance worked fine. Volunteers took money at the door, brought refreshments, and cleaned up afterwards.
Vicky kept inviting dancers.
Over the following months, her living-room, jam band morphed into a megaband, "Plays Well With Others," and then self-immolated in the usual, internal squabbles, replaced by other bands. The caller, Richard Myers, came back, month after month, holding the dance up until he was able to recruit other callers to give him a break.
Westminster is a family-oriented community, so the dances had little kids running around the floor, old folks, wheelchairs -- you name it. Richard taught easy reels and mixers.
And Vicky kept inviting dancers. Everyone she met.
Some came back, some didn't. That always happens. A dance that's a going concern has to recruit a new dancer for each dancer who doesn't come back. Every dance. It's entirely do-able, but someone has to do the recruiting. That was Vicky.
Today, Vicky's married to a guitar player, lives an hour and a half away, and doesn't come to the dances anymore. Other folks recruit dancers. It's a smallish dance: a fifty-person dance crowds the hall. Still, it's steady. I'm calling a dance there next January, and it's now July, so Pat Tognoni is booking the dances at least six months ahead.
The dances down by Denver University? No Pied Piper.
The dance organizer got a hall, a sound system, callers, bands, volunteers, and even put up flyers. He got it announced at other dances. He got government funding. It's not enough. In fact, it's completely missing the point. When he was urged to recruit dancers, he said he didn't want to just get "a bunch of students." In Denver's University District?
It's the same with jams. Someone has to ask really a lot of people to come. However many people you're thinking of right now? More than that.
Successful politicians know this. They go door-to-door. They shake hands. They kiss babies. They hold rallies at shopping centers. "I'm here to ask for your vote."
To keep a community, you have to ask people to be in it. Year after year. Month after month. Week after week. Day after day. Hour after hour. After a few years, other folks will chip in and help. Eventually, word-of-mouth will do some of the work for you.
But never all of it.
I have a weekly jam. I can pretty much guarantee I'll meet folks this week, whom I'll invite. "Do you play music? Cool. What do you play? You know, I have a jam at my house on Wednesday nights. You should come."
So, for that matter, should you.
