I've lately ended up calling a bunch of parties and I've been happy with calling mostly longways whole-set dances. These are ones that are shaped like a contra dance in terms of having two lines facing each other, each person across from their partner, but your role doesn't matter and you're not grouped into hands-fours ("minor sets"). I want to be able to teach it in a single fast-paced walkthrough, match it tightly to the musical phrase, and be able to drop out after a few times through. This means I need most of the figures to be very simple, and a low piece count.

On the other hand, if I build every dance out of the same small number of building blocks (ex: reshuffles of Galopede), dancers will start to feel "haven't we done this one before"? So I also like dances that have a "hook": an interesting figure that we don't do in the other dances. Some examples:

• In Jacob's Potato the whole set circles (well, potatoes) left and right.
• In the Low-Backed Car each line takes a turn dancing around the other.
• In Charge and Drag the top and bottom couple each arch over one of the lines, and then additionally charge towards each other and drag to the bottom.

Other hooks I like include lines weaving between arches and the whole set casting to the bottom ("peel the banana").

I was looking for more dances like this, especially ones that fit in small spaces (no down the hall) and aren't too picky about the number of couples (5 - 8). I asked the Trad Callers mailing list for ideas, and got back a bunch. After looking through them I added two to my repertoire:

• Witch's Reel (thread the needle)
• Falling Masonry (arch over lines; cascading sashay)

Of the ones I didn't add, I think the zig-zag poussette figure in Wee Willie II would be fun to adapt, but the dance as written takes more space than I often have. I'll probably look for another dance with that figure (or write one).

I also saved two simple duple minors where roles don't matter, for when the crowd is ready for something slightly more complex:

• Riverside Jig (simple duple minor with lines of four arching down over the whole set)
• Quandranella (simple duple minor with petronella)