The Cattle Call Awareness Guidebook: Part 1

    If you read the previous post, you’re aware that all this week, I will be celebrating Cattle Call Awareness Week (CCAW) with a new post every day! With these posts, I hope to educate the public and particularly the unsuspecting dancer, of the many ways to distinguish a torturous and deceptive Cattle Call from a run-of-the-mill audition. 

 

1.      How confusing is the sign-in process?

At a real audition you will likely be asked to fill out a form or two with some information about yourself, your body and your dance history. Then you are given a rectangular piece of paper (or fabric if this is a high class kind of place) with a number on it to attach to your leotard with an ineffective, broken safety pin. Usually this number is between 1 and 55. The more forms you are asked to fill out, the more broken your safety pin and the lower your number the more likely  you are experiencing either a REAL audition. (If there are only a lot of forms, you might be experiencing IDENTITY FRAUD, but don’t worry. It’s still not a Cattle Call.) 

     At A Cattle Call, you will arrive to find hundreds (possibly thousands, but I can’t count that high) of people clustered around a tiny, plastic table. You will probably have to wait in something the audition monitor calls a “line” in order to sign your name on a piece of pink printer paper next to a number which will probably fall somewhere between 98 and 472. You will be encouraged to sign your name as illegibly as possible. They will probably not want you to fill out a form. Forms are too much fun for Cattle Calls, see. The higher your number and the more chaotic this process, the higher your number and the grumpier the audition monitor the more likely you are experiencing a Cattle Call. Prepare yourself! 

   In the words of the cow-loving, Mad-Eye Moody, CONSTANT VIGILANCE!