Tonight’s the night I call my first contra dance (dance meaning one dance in an evening of contra dancing as opposed to dance meaning the whole evening of contra dancing…in square dancing, we have tips, which avoids the terminology confusion). Actually, I’m calling two dances; the first is Katie’s Trip to Starbase Twelve and the second is 24th of October, which I wrote about here. Both are a little quirky; as I was running errands today, I was thinking about how I was going to do the walkthrus. It’s important to (a) be clear, and (b) not talk too much. My guess is I’ll have a tendency to overteach; I’m used to teaching calls to square dancers so that they can do the call from whatever formation/arrangement any (sadistic?) caller puts them in, as opposed to explaining a dance to contra dancers who only have to keep it in their heads for the next 10 or so minutes.

On Wednesday, my contra calling class had a meeting to plan our May 2 graduation dance. I got some insight into dance programming by listening to Merri think out loud as she placed callers in the lineup.

I spent time on Tuesday and Wednesday researching dances on line. There are a lot of sources, including a Filemaker database (American Country Dances On Line, served on a Mac), that is downloadable. Which I did. And then started adding other dances. Here’s a list of sources of dances, both online and off (scroll for online resources).

I find myself attracted to dances by name, which is probably dangerous. But how could I resist a dance called “24th of October” (my birthday). I can’t give you a URL directly to the dance; it’s in the American Country Dances On Line database. So here it is:

24th of October

By Don Lennartson

Editor’s Notes:
Based on Steve Schnur’s 24th of June.

This dance is from American Country Dances On Line
All rights reserved by the author; used by permission.
Added to database 3/19/1997; last revised 3/5/1999; edited by Russell Owen

As an MWSD dancer and caller, the circulates look pretty trivial. But Merri thought this would be pretty hard to call…spitting out the “balance” and “circulate” (plus any helper words to get the dancers through an unfamiliar figure) will be challenging. I’m looking forward to it. And I’m practicing.

Here’s a site with a very appealing description of contra dancing. It’s interesting to compare and contrast with modern squares.

Here’s what the author says about square dancing:

Some of the moves are similar to square dancing (swing your partner, make a star, chain the women ? a move that sounds more kinky than it is) while others are unique to contra. I usually downplay the similarities because contra differs greatly from most people’s mental pictures of square dancing or their grade-school experience of it. We always dance to live music and don’t wear square dance costumes. Square dancing involves four couples dancing in a group while a contra line can accommodate as many couples as space allows. In a typical contra evening, there will often be one or two square dances and even a pair of waltzes.

Here’s what he says about why he enjoys contra:

I enjoy contra dancing because it’s a place where time stands still. I can dance for hours and it seems like a minute. It’s a place where I can turn off my brain and just relax. Contra dancing, like no other activity, compels me to live in the present. When I’m dancing, I’m not regretting the past or worried about the future. I’m totally focused on the present, a discipline that leads to happiness.

If we take out the part about turning off his brain, that would describe what I like about square dancing. And for me, the brain turn-on helps me be in the present; there’s no room for thinking about other stuff.

He also says:

Contra dance is playful and fun, a place where adults can be kids. I enjoy contra because it’s a dance style where it’s more important to have fun than to do it right; it’s simple enough that beginners learn very quickly; and it allows experienced dancers and beginners to enjoy being partners together.

I think the first sentence also can apply to square dancing, depending on the people in the square. And I’d like to think that the first part of the second sentence applies, but I fear that it doesn’t always. And the last part doesn’t apply at all; beginners can’t learn MWSD quickly (although I think the learning part is fun), and experienced dancers don’t particularly enjoy dancing with beginners all the time. We’ll do it because we know it’s important that beginners get the dance time, and we also know that we may be beginners at the next dance program and will be depending on the kindness of the more experienced dancers to help us through.

And this may be square dancing’s downfall; we send out mixed messages. We need beginners, but we’re tired of angeling. We need new dancers, but it’s more fun to dance with people who know what they’re doing. It’s hard to integrate new dancers into a floor of experienced dancers, and for many experienced dancers, it’s been too long since they were beginners. In square dancing’s heyday, there were lots of new dancers so callers could cater to them; now there are usually just a few, cowering in the back squares. What’s challenging choreographically for a new dancer who still takes a second to remember how to do a call is different from what’s challenging to a dancer who’s been dancing the level for years and has seen lots of choreographic variations. (I’ve had experience with this recently as a new and inexperienced C3A dancer: I have a helluva time doing “interesting” C3A choreography.)

Do I have an answer? Not really; it’s hard for me to think about going back to nothing but Basic or CDP-style square dancing. I enjoy the complexity. But I also think we may have evolved ourselves right out of being an accessible dance form and right into extinction…not of square dancing, but of MWSD-style square dancing in its current form.

While googling “eye contact square dancing,” I came across a report by a college-age young woman who’s part of a trek across the United States. The trek is designed to be followed on the internet by kids in elementary and high school; the participants take pictures and write reports on the things they do and see as they travel through the United States. Here’s the report when two of the trekkers went contra dancing.

Had my first contra calling class last night. Merri Rudd is the instructor and organizer and there are 8 people in the class (although only 7 showed up tonight). We practiced calling Broken Sixpence by Don Armstrong over and over to get the timing right. A good thing to do; I got carried away with improvisation (it’s hard as a MWSD caller to call the same thing over and over) and lost the phrase once, but mostly I’m reasonably good at hearing the music and delivering the calls before the start of the phrase. Broken Sixpence is good for this because every call is an 8-count call, so 4-count call descriptions (“Just the men do-sa-do”) always start on beat 5 of each 8-beat phrase. We also practiced calling 2-count calls descriptions (“Men Go”), starting on beat 6, and finally 1-count descriptions (“Men”), given on beat 7.

Merri provided live music (5 Dog String Band) for us to do this to, and we’ll have live music again for the third session.

Speaking of Don Armstrong, I googled (there’s that verb again) Don Armstrong Memorial Weekend, which I attended in Albuquerque last fall, and found only one reference on the web. Too bad it’s in German, but there are pictures, including a couple of pictures of Bill Litchman (no direct site, but here’s an interview with him as director of the Lloyd Shaw Foundation Dance Archives), who’s going to be teaching our next session, which is on teaching. Just like MWSD callers, contra callers need to be good teachers; every time they present a dance, they have to (a) teach the sequence of calls, and (b) if necessary, teach the individual calls. The walkthru is an important part of the craft of contra calling, and that’s what we’ll be dealing with next week.

In the meantime, we’re supposed to pick out a dance to teach, and also practice calling Broken Sixpence and, presumably, the dance we want to present, to traditional music. Merri lent me a copy of Uncle Gizmo; she said I’d like it, and I do, although the medleys change moods and rhythms radically, which should make the practice calling interesting.

Check out this site with some amazing contra dance paintings. What fun! And men in skirts!

I’m reading Mary McNab Dart’s book, Contra Dance Choreography – A Reflection of Social Change (Amazon ref (out of print), online review). Of course I can’t read it without comparing what she’s saying with the MWSD scene, and I’ll probably be making copious notes here when I have the time. I’d love to own a copy; I got the book from interlibrary loan and have to return it soon.

I’m interested in how contra dance choreographers go about composing dances. As an MWSD caller, I “compose” dances all the time…mostly off the top of my head. But since it looks like MWSD is moving towards a simpler, more accessible set of calls, I find it interesting to look at the factors that go into composing dances with just a few basics.

I’ll also be reading Cary Ravitz’ page of Notes on Choreography for Duple Minor Improper Contra Dances.

I talk a lot about contras, even through I’m a MWSD caller. I enjoy an evening of contras and traditional squares, and appreciate the skills of contra callers. If you’re interested in the differences between contra/traditional and MWSD, check out Explaining Traditional Squares and Contras to MWSD folks by Clark Baker, a C4 caller who also enjoys contras. Last year at the CALLERLAB convention, I had the pleasure of dancing a nice, flowing, contra style dance that Clark wrote. It incorporated a partner swing, a neighbor swing, and a relay the deucey…all in 64 counts, with a progression. It was great!

I liked this page on contra dancing; it’s a nice intro, describing what it’s like to go to a contra dance for the first time.

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Contra Dancing

T-B and I went to FolkMADS Saturday night; I felt like some aerobic exercise, and I certainly didn’t want to put on a dress for the relatively mild aerobics that I’d get dancing to Ed Kremers at Allemanders, not to mention that I didn’t have a partner. The dancing was fun, as always.

But I was struck again (as I am every time I go to a contra dance) how often the flow and hand usage would be considered unacceptable in modern western square dancing. For example (and I’ve seen/felt this one at just about every contra dance I’ve attended), consider bend the line to a ladies chain from a one-faced line. This is lousy for the couple on the left-hand side of the line; it’s a direction reversal for the belle. However, after a few times through, the dancers start to smooth it out…the left-hand couple, knowing what’s coming next, doesn’t bend the line; they just wait for the right-hand couple to bend and start the (smooth) ladies chain.

Contra dance as religion: The Tao of Contra Dance