27 Feb
2018
27 Feb
'18
3:49 p.m.
If I'm reading this correctly, I'd like to note that "zesty" versus
"community" is not determined by geography, i.e. rural versus urban, but
rather one of the culture that's been
available/created/nourished/stumbled-upon.
In my region you have Harvest Moon that runs both the River Falls dance
out in the absolute middle of nowhere (15 minutes up a draw once you get
off the highway, most urban areas are 35+ minutes away)
and the Landmark Hall dance smack dab in an urban area (suburb of
Greenville). The River Falls dance's dominant demographic is under 25
and their regular weekly dance is packed insane crazy fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJWOcdW47bc (dozens of River
Falls contra dance videos on YouTube)
The Landmark Hall dance is a pleasant mixed age dance that's age biased
older and is closer to what I would call a "community" dance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rutRApUMsXc
The St. Louis contra dance in Webster Grove, Childgrove, is nestled deep
in an large city yet biases towards the comfort of a "community" dance
versus a yell-and-scream-with-Great-Bear weekend dance.
Point I'm making is it's not entirely about geography.
Heitzso
A belated follow-up to Chrissy's "subtle
point": I don't agree that it
is subtle - I think the culture of a contra dance in a rural area is
fundamentally different than a "zesty modern urban" contra dance. We
were discussing this on the way home after the Flurry, and I truly
value both.
I used to live in an area where I could get to both types of dances
(roughly halfway between Philly and Baltimore). I could get to one of
the weekly urban dances on a weeknight and then a community oriented
dance on the weekend. Now that I live halfway up the coast of Maine I
don't get the joy of the zesty urban dances I used to enjoy. I do
still get the joy of the community dances, and I am glad that the
Belfast contra dance has become such an important social setting for
our many young attenders. The strong sense of community is wonderful,
but the fun dance experiences for me are now the occasional festivals
I can get to.