ACDOL: Bus Stop, The

Bus Stop, The

By Bill Olson
Composed September 12, 1998

Source	Bill Olson's dance page http://www.megalink.net/~pweeks/billscorner.html
Level	med (assigned by the editor)
Type	Contra
Formation	Improper

A1	(4) Neighbors balance by the right (4) Box the gnat (6) Right hand star 3/4 (2) Form a wave across, ladies in the center
A2	(4) Balance the wave (4) Ladies allemande left (8) Half hey, partners pass right shoulders to start
B1	(8) Partners gypsy (8) Partners swing
B2	(8) Promenade across (courtesy turn recommended) (2) Roll away with a half sashay (ladies roll left) (6) Left hand star 3/4

Author's Notes:
This dance was written on the way to call a dance in N. Yarmouth at the Westcustogo Grange. In March, I had been talking with Carol Ormand about a dance called by Sue Rosen at the 8th annual Downeast Country Dance Festival. The dance was "Summer Sunshine" by Paul Balliet. It had a circle L 3/4 to a wave across and it was a really smooth move that Carol admitted she wished she had invented. We figured a star to a wave was a cool move too, but she had only seen a star to a long wave, not a wave across. So this is it.
Scrod Pudding played a set of modern reels for this dance at Bowdoinham town hall on Sept 19: "Don Tremaine's" by Graham Townsend (in D), "Evil Diane" by Sam Bartlett (in A), and "Bus Stop Reel" (in Am) by Anita Anderson. What a great mezmerizing set and it worked so well! Since this dance also grew out of a dance I have been working on since April to commemorate David Kaynor's 50th birthday, and since David is continually threatening to ride the bus to gigs in order to be able to carpool with someone to the NEXT gig, that iced it for me. I figured I had to name the dance "The Bus Stop", just another stop along the way...
The star to a wave goes very smoothly, the women just have to remember to reach left hands across the star, but leave right hands joined with partners to form a wave across with the active man facing down joined by R to active woman, etc.
In B2, courtesy turn after the 1/2 Promenade then flow into a Rollaway with a Half Sashay to change places with partner. This has everyone moving in the correct direction for the L/H star and if the women remember to put their left hands in immediately there is a nice flow into the star, I think!
A possible alternative would be a Partner Balance and swing in B1, but that makes the timing a little more critical in A2.