[Callers] Re: Contras for a Crowd that does not Swing

Jerome Grisanti wrote: I’ve told this story before. Wherever I’ve been based, I’ve tried to give dancers material they weren’t getting from anyone else. When I lived in NYC and the prevailing genres were more-or-less traditional squares and international folk dances, I attempted to teach a few contras. It was like pulling teeth. I got all the same complaints about contras that hotshot contra dancers make now about squares: They’re too hard; they’re too easy; they take too long to set up. (When a group is used to one dance form, a single example of a different form _will_ take a long time to set up.) When I moved to the Boston area, most American dance series were about half squares and half contras – a mix that I liked very much and still do when I can get it as a dancer. The squares were phrased in New England style, what outsiders sometimes call “quadrilles,” so I made sure to include a few squares from other regions (mid-Atlantic, southern, old western). As the proportion of contras in the mix grew and grew, I tried to include a minimum of two square sets (four figures) in an average evening – and got lots of flak for it. By now, the problem is that most contra dancers weren’t around in the 1970s; they’ve grown up on a steady diet of contras and think of squares as an _invasive_ species, whereas I think of them as an _endangered_ species. I encourage you all to work at broadening your dancers’ horizons in whatever ways feel right to you, so long as you can do it without alienating them. Tony Parkes Billerica, Mass. www.hands4.com<http://www.hands4.com/> New book! Square Dance Calling: An Old Art for a New Century (available now)