22 Sep
2019
22 Sep
'19
9:55 p.m.
I looked for videos of contra dancing in Denmark and found these three:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hhxwVuoI2g (119-120 BPM)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4KB-uSWkKc (117-118 BPM)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03ALEBBtUbc (~113 BPM)
These all seem to be from the same event. It's possible that a wider sampling of
contra dances in Denmark (which may not be available Youtube) would support Tom's
recollection of faster tempos.
The videos do seem to support Tom's observation about the infrequency of
improvisation. On casual viewing, without trying to look carefully at each visible dancer
in each video, I didn't notice anyone twirling out of swings much less doing dips,
etc., and I noticed only one place where it seemed that someone (partially obscured from
the camera by other dancers) embellished a nominal courtesy turn with a twirl.
In 1992, I attended a conference in Denmark and managed to find my way to a couple of
dances while I was there. I don't have a specific recollection about the tempos, but
if I recall correctly, the events I got to were regular local dances with recorded music
(probably on cassette or vinyl). That might have meant that the callers were in control
of variable-speed players.
--Jim
On Sep 22, 2019, at 4:53 PM, tom hinds via Callers
<callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
I believe that the tempo for dancing contras in the United States has to do with the
style and wants of the dancers. It’s the desire to improvise and flirt which I think is
an integral part of the US contra scene and is the reason for the tempo being what it is.
If you look at the contra dancing in Denmark, the tempos are much faster. Although I
haven’t been there for several years they don’t improvise and they don’t do much if any
flirting either. They dance very straight. My conclusion from watching them quite a bit
is that slower tempos would leave them standing around which they wouldn’t find as much
fun. I’ve never timed the music but I would guess it’s easily at 124 bpm or higher,
definitely the same as a tempo for squares here.
Sent from my iPad
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