I'm assuming this a long-ways set for 4-6 couples, but am a bit confused as to your instructions and the timing.
1. I get that partners are shaking hands, but what is the "1-2-3-4" bit? Is it "advance to partner 2, shake hands across for 4, and back up 2"?
2. Why are there 24 beats to strip the willow
("arch and file through")
when you are already using 16 beats to invert the line ("all follow C1", with no return)? The dancers are already in motion from the invert, so a total of 24 counts should be fine for both actions. Even allowing extra wiggle room for totally new dancers or a few additional couples, I still don't see it really needing more than 32 beats at a standard community dance
.
(A wedding party, children, or inebriated dancers will change that math, of course.)
The extra counts seem tacked on to "force-phrase" it, as it were.
Personally, I'm betting that this dance works more like a
southern or western square than a contra: The instructions are
correct, but the timing doesn't add up "right" because it is a social dance and wasn't intended to fit a 32-bar phrase. If they did make it fit the phrase, the band probably did the
following:
- played a crooked / custom tune OR a tune with only a single A or B part OR something with minimal phrasing,
- AND cut the final phrase short or extended it as needed until all the lines were ready to resume, resulting in a variable length for the B section.
I've
had several bands pull that trick for Grand Marches and
things like this dance, and even heard a few expert groups perform mid-phrase resets to help wayward callers.
Regardless, since we are talking about recordings and not a band,
this dance as described will struggle to fit a standard, heavily phrased 32-bar contra tune beginning with A1--at a minimum, you'd have to move the handshake to the end of the dance and so you can use it during a pick-up phrase.
Failing finding something like that (and I don't have any specific recordings in mind), my suggestion is to use a minimally-phrased or repetitive tune suited for squares...or
reconcile yourself to crossing phrases. (It's a dance best suited for new dancers, after all; most won't notice the difference.)
Hope that helps.
Neal Schlein
Librarian, MSLIS