Take a Bow Callers (CL204 May 2011)
Jeff Garbutt, Western Australia

Why is it that after having our allocated call in a bracket we walk away and leave the stage area? If you ever go to a live performance done by a professional (or even amateur) actor or a musician at a live play or concert you would have noticed that they invariably take a bow at the end. It is recognition on the part of the performer that they appreciate their audience taking time to watch and listen to them. It is also an opportunity for the audience to show their appreciation of the performance they have just had. Think of it as a two way deal, the performer thanks the audience and the audience returns with their applause.

Callers are no different to other performers. We may not get similar 4, 5, 6 or even 7 digit earnings for our performance, but in every other aspect we are no different. And anyway that's no reason to simply go away and deprive our audience of the mutual thanks and respect. And when you think about it, it is simply rude for us to take off. We should also give our audiences thanks and recognition for taking time to listen and dance to us. And our audience, (our dancers), quite often like to show their appreciation. As such we should be like other performers and acknowledge our audience after our performance.

This is especially true of a large function with multiple callers sharing. Each caller should come up front and bow to the dancers, or at least simply wave, when the MC is ending the bracket. So instead of running off at the end of a call you should discreetly be out of sight until called up by the MC. And MCs should say something like "thanks to our callers for this bracket "…", "…" and "…." , (callers wave), our next bracket will be "____" in a few minutes".

Why not think about it?