Contra Dancing - Try it!!

We have two dances coming up this month: December 10 at 7:30 pm at the United Methodist Church Social Hall in Rossford, Ohio and December 31 at the First United Methodist Church Social Hall in Troy, Michigan.  The dances use the church social halls but they are not affiliated with the religious organizations. Everyone is invited to attend.  It’s not necessary to bring a partner.  More information can be found on our website   http://www.GoldenGriffonStringtet.com/performances.htm

Whether it’s called an old-time dance, community dance, square dance, hoe-down or contra dance, these events usually follow a similar format and use music and dances that follow the same rules: dances are sixty four beats long, consisting of as few as four or as many as sixteen figures or movements.  Most figures are eight beats long.  A few are four beats long, some are twelve and some are sixteen but the majority are eight beats long.  Dancers go through a set of figures interacting with one group of dancers then move on to repeat the figures with a new group of dancers.  A simple dance of this sort would be:

Circle left (8 beats)

Circle right (8)

Right hand star (8)

Left hand star (8)

Do si do your neighbor (8)

Do si do your partner (8)

Four steps forward and four steps back (8)

Pass through on to the next (8)

The music that accompanies the dance follows this same pattern: thirty-two bars or measures of music consisting of sixty-four beats divided into eight phrases that are each eight beats long.  Dancers take one step for every beat of the music.  Dancers listen to the music and use the phrases as musical cues to indicate when it’s time to start a new figure.  While the music we play is instrumental, a vocal example to help illustrate this concept would be to use the song “Jingle Bells” for this dance.  Capitalized syllables and asterisks represent the beats or places where dancers would take a step.

Circle left (DASHing THROUGH the SNOW   *   in a ONE horse Open SLEIGH   *   )

Circle right (OE’R the FIELDS we GO   *   LAUGHing ALL the WAY   *   )

Right hand star (BELLS on BOBtail RING   *   MAKing SPIRits BRIGHT   *   what)

Left hand star (FUN it IS to RIDE and SING a SLEIGHing SONG to NIGHT  OH)

Do si do your neighbor (JINgle BELLS JINgle BELLS JINgle ALL the WAY   *)

Do si do your partner (OH what FUN it IS to RIDE in a ONE horse Open SLEIGH   *   )

Four steps forward and four steps back (JINgle BELLS JINgle BELLS JINgle ALL the WAY   *)

Pass through on to the next (OH what FUN it IS to RIDE in a ONE horse Open SLEIGH   *   )

This might seem complicated but it is actually much easier to do than it is to think about.  The music is lively and energetic. All the dances are always taught before they are danced to music and the caller provides clear, spoken, prompts throughout the dance to help everybody stay on track. Come on out!