Mixer Dance - General Mixers

General Mixers

• A couple dances straight across the dance hall until they reach the opposite end. They separate, men and ladies each walking along opposite walls to the start end of the hall where they meet their next partners. The randomness in partner matching arises from the different speed of travel and often different numbers of men and ladies.
• A couple dances a full round around the room and exchanges partners with these at the start point. Matching randomness is from the speed differences as well as from some chaos introduced at the start point.
• Couples dance until the music stops, then all couples say goodbye to each other and grab next best partner who happens to be close by (Sometimes the slow ones have to run across the room to meet a spare partner).
• Couples dance until the music stops. Then they separate and form two concentric "segregated" circles of men and ladies. As "mixing music" starts (something different from the dance danced), the circles walk in opposite directions until the mixing music stops. New partners are those who happen to stand opposite each other at this moment. If there is a disproportion between genders, the "unlucky" ones are encouraged to go and grab someone sitting or standing along the walls.
• The same as above, only during the "mixing music" the dancers instead of walking do some simple kind of round dance with frequent exchange of partners.
• A funny version of the above (observed during a folk Polka mixer in Lithuania): After some dancing the caller calls: "Guys inside (the circle), gals outside. Gals continue dancing, guys groom themselves." Then the caller calls "Guys, grab yourselves a pair". Then he calls: "Now gals inside, guys outside." (A pause of suspense...) "Gals continue dancing, guys groom themselves." (The joke is in the broken expectation: since in the second call "guys are outside", it would be expected for guys to dance and girls to groom themselves.)