How to use TAMinations

This example to the right is just a snapshot image, not a working animation. The square dancers are boys, and the round ones are girls. The orange connections are handholds.

I try to follow the Callerlab definitions as closely as possible. Some differences you might see are:

• The dancers may adjust a bit to finish in standard lines, waves, columns, etc. This is what real dancers do as well.
• I try to match the Callerlab timing with the number of tick marks between Start and End, but you might find a few differences.
• Handholds are drawn very simply and don't show any styling - hands up, couples, forearm, are all shown the same. Some handholds might not start or end exactly when real dancers would.

I have added ratings to some of the calls, ♦ for common usage, ♦♦ for less common, and ♦♦♦ for the most difficult. These are just my own subjective opinions, based on my experience on calls that are used most often and calls that give dancers the most difficulty.

TAMination Controls and Display

• This slider shows the current position in the animation. You can drag it to change the position. You can also use the mouse wheel with the SVG animation.
• Drag this slider to vary the speed when the animation is playing. Bottom is snail-paced, top is hot hash.
  (The SVG animation has Slow/Normal/Fast buttons instead of a slider.)
• Multi-part calls have the different parts numbered here. The tick marks show the beats. All animations start on beat 2.
• Click to go to the start of the animation.
• Click to go to the start of the current part.
• Click to go backward a small amount.
• Click to play or stop animation.
• Click to go forward a small amount.
• Click to go to the start of the next part.
• Click to go to the end of the animation.
• Square dancers are "boys", circles are "girls". The dark hemisphere show the facing direction. (So this example shows right-handed ocean waves.)
• These orange connectors are handholds. There's no styling - hands up, couples, forearm etc. are all drawn the same.

Special Features

You can access some fun "extras" by right-clicking in the Java animation, or selecting the additional buttons on the SVG animation.

• Loop Check to automatically restart the animation when playing.
• Grid Check to show a grid with 1-dancer-size boxes.
• Paths Displays the route dancers take as colored lines.

The SVG animation has some more features, available by shift-clicking on a dancer.

• Hexagon One dancer is added for every 2 in the starting formation, so 4 couples becomes 6 couples. There's an excellent article on this by Clark Baker, and more info and graphics by Justin Legakis
• Bi-gon This variation removes half the dancers, so 4 couples becomes 2. A great article by Sue Curtis is required reading if you want to attempt to understand this.
• Barstool This fixes the position of one dancer. The barstool dancer can turn but not move. All the other dancers adjust by moving around the barstool. Clark Baker has a good explanation . In some cases you'll also want to enlarge the dance floor.
• Compass The complement to barstool - one dancer's facing direction is fixed, and the other dancers have to rotate the setup to adjust. I don't know if this has actually been done, it might not be practical especially for 4 couples.