Dream Circles: Introduction

Hi--

The silence since Orycon has been deafening, maybe because we're all trying to recover and get caught up (forever is miserable when you're in the middle of working the dozenth awful pH problem)--but I have been thinking a lot about circles, and the seemingly endless type debate.

I would like to thank Karen for her great brochure on filk--I think it helped a lot of people, and for this reason, I don't intend to discuss circle type or etiquette at all. It's been done, by a master, hurrah.

But there is something that ties all this stuff together, and it's something that gets lost in big circles regardless of the type. I think everybody who sings or tells a story in a circle wants (and deserves) an attentive, interested audience. Unfortunately, I've seen too many circles where, for whatever reason, people didn't pay attention--didn't even look at the person performing. A feeling of boredom pervades the room. I think this has to do with the fact that, though we want a receptive, attentive audience, we're not as interested in BEING an attentive, receptive audience.

Of course, this isn't universally true. I, for example, can sit and listen to nearly anybody do funny songs about cons (good or bad), sing-alongs, historical ballads, and songs about general science fiction themes. I prefer them short, and I prefer a mixture of mood. Get into a long song about a TV show I haven't seen (yes, there are some of us who haven't seen Bab 5)--and I'm bored in an instant. I expect others could make a list like that. The lists would differ, but I suspect there will be similarities. And that's the purpose of the "Dream Circle" survey, which I will send in a separate post, so people can just bounce it back to me.

If it is true that people who bring material to circles want an attentive receptive audience, and people can define what will make them such an audience, it ought to be worth the time to put together material that will be interesting to performer and participant alike. I'd like to take survey responses and put them together into a "How to Win Circles and Influence Filkers" guide. My hope is that this little endeavor will make circles more fun for everyone involved.

Anne Received on 11/18/97