Martin Ingenhütt
I
was born in 1956; after school I studied double bass at the music high school
and became a musician. I run a pop group and a trio which concentrated on
performing contemporary classical music in a very unsusual instrumental combination.
In parallel, I am now teaching for almost twenty-five years double bass and music
theory (at the music school in Bergisch-Gladbach).
I always was interested in computers, and in 2000 I took a job as a software developer. Today I am working in the product management of a software company, writing specifications. My hobbies include languages, astronomy, trains, architecture, psychology and Indian vegetarian food.
After having done a bit folk dancing for some years, in 2000 I also happened to learn about square dancing. I made a class in Cologne with the Colonia Swingers; immediately afterwards I started calling, and in January 2004 became club caller of the Colonia Swingers. At the same time I started to write down what I learned and to publish my essays in the internet. I did a few caller schools with Al Stevens, Kenny Reese, Dave Wilson and Edeltraut Mertmann which I all can recommend. In 2005 I became an active member of ECTA (European Callers and Teachers Association) and started working in the ECTA Mainstream committee.
Increasingly, the clubs in Germany prefer to work without a responsible club caller, instead hiring a different caller every night. Considering the overall development of square dancing, I can not see this as a positive development. And unfortunately, there rarely seems to be a way back. As a consequence I had to resign from my work at 'my' club for the end of 2006.
I often do open houses ('square dance parties') for all kinds of groups of interested people, and conducted four regular Mainstream classes. I have appearances as a guest caller in clubs in West and South Germany as well as New Zealand. My calling level is Mainstream and every subset of calls below, although I like to introduce new calls just for one night (calls from Burleson's collection as well as calls that I invented myself). Recently, I became very interested in easy entry concepts such as ABC. I also discovered Contra as a new approach to rhythmical dancing which seems to have been lost in today's square dance world.