23 Nov
2022
23 Nov
'22
12:06 p.m.
I've been trying to do some of the dances that were popular when I first started
contra dance in the late 1980's. Most evenings would include unequal dances where the
1's were the active couple and the 2's were inactive. These dances included
figures that have been neglected of late. Like 1's down the middle and back and cast
off with the 2's, along with chains and rights and lefts over and back. We just
don't see dances like that done very often any more. While they all had swings my
impression is that they had fewer swings than many of the dances today.
A few examples are:
Anne’s a Bride Tonight by Dillon Bustin
Aston Polka Contra by John Findlay
Blackthorn Reel by Roger Knox
Broken Sixpence by Don Armstrong (one of my favorite dances)
etc.
Jonathan
On 11/23/2022 10:05 AM, Jerome Grisanti via Contra Callers wrote:
I second Lisa's idea, with the added note that
such choreography will likely face some resistance if it's not sold well. So I
encourage fun and creative choreography that will outweigh the perceived loss of value of
dances with fewer swings.
We might reinvigorate ideas from old square-dance figures (lady/lark around two, gent,
robin drop through) and from English dance (cast and lead, set and turn single). Selling
meaning to explore the fun and connective elements in these figures, rather than seeing
them as placeholders. I'm sure there are many more ideas and I'm interested in
them.
Jerome
On Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 10:18 AM Lisa Sieverts via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
<mailto:contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net>> wrote:
At the risk of derailing this conversation, ah, I definitely am derailing it so will
change the subject line.
I’d like to see new COVID-aware choreography with fewer swings. If swinging is
perhaps the most dangerous thing we do while dancing, I’d like to see some new dances that
emphasize partner swings and de-emphasize neighbor swings, and at least some dances
without any swings.
I’m intrigued by the idea that dances without swings open up 32 beats of opportunity
for new choreography.
Lisa Sieverts
603-762-0235
lisa(a)lisasieverts.com <mailto:lisa@lisasieverts.com>
On 23 Nov 2022, at 9:30, Jeff Kaufman via Contra Callers wrote:
"during the average contra evening, you will
spend approximately 30 minutes
swinging"
Tangent: I thought "that can't be right" but a little playing with
numbers
and I think it is. My back of the envelope: guess ~12 dances, each ~17
times through, with ~20 beats of swinging per dance. That's 4k beats of
swinging, which at 118bpm is 35min. Another way to think of it is that in
a 3hr evening half of your time is dancing and a third of that is swinging.
Jeff
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