A Very Useful Little Contra Dance

Dear All, I'm sharing a dance that I made up. If you work with any bands that a nice set of rags in their tune list, you might find this to be a very nice little dance to pair with it. I have continued to be surprised by the antics that I've seen dancers throw into the dance when the music has been right. Ragtime Sammy Contra, Duple, Improper Ridge Kennedy, 2015 A-1 Right Hands Across Star (8) Left Hands Across Star (8) A-2 Men Turn Back over right shoulder (peel off) make eye contact and and swing Neighbor (a short gypsy) (4-6) Long Swing (12-10) B-1 Circle Left Three Quarters (8) Partner Swing (8) B-2 Women Allemande Right 1 1/2 (8) Neighbor Allemande Left 1 1/2 (8) Notes: The first version of this dance was made up in about 2013 for a dance with Big Phat American K-Lee Band in Glen Echo. Early in the program – maybe first dance, the band was going to do a set of rags. So we wanted a dance that would work well with rags and that was pretty easy – a starter upper. The only tricky bit here is moving from the allemande left with neighbors to the next star. Just keep dancers mindful of which way they will be going to progress, and it will work out fine. The idea behind using the hands across stars was to encourage dancers to use their free hands to do a little hand jive if the music so inspired them. And so it did. The ending sequence for the dance was finally locked in place during 2015, I think. I don't remember how it ended when I first made it up -- might have been this but I'm not sure. For all the time the dance was percolating it was my “raggy, starry hand jive dance.” Recently though, noting that bands frequently included Ragtime Annie in their raggy sets and since (little known secret here) my first name is Samuel – well Ragtime Sammy seems like a fitting title. Yeah, it’s a silly little dance, but when the music is right, dancers really do feel encouraged to get into the hand jive and much more. -- Ridge Kennedy [Exit 145] When you stumble, make it part of the dance. - Anonymous And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh. - Friedrich Nietzsche