February 4, 2006
Contra- ::
weird, personal, music, vermont — No Tags
9:42 am
Jessamyn and I went contra dancing last night. For those of you who know me, you’re probably thinking what the hell? Greg contra dancing? (And for those who don’t know me, maybe checking out my Last.fm stats will give you some idea of how outside-the-range-of-normal going doing such a thing as this might be.) Well, the whole reason we went was because back in 2003 (I think), I promised Jessamyn [update: for her birthday!] that we would go contra dancing at some point in the future. Now, two and a half years later, after failed attempts and last-minute changings-of-mind, we went last night, and over all it wasn’t too bad at all. I’d even call it fun. Now this morning I seem to have contra dancing on the mind. I found this useful Wikipedia page on contra dancing (we probably should have read it before we went, so maybe we would have an inkling of an understanding of what, say, a sashay is), and this excellent page on the mathematics of the contra dance. So even if you’re like me and a totally bad dancer, you’ll be reigned in my the unforgiving mathematical rules that govern the whole experience. (Best description: “you’re dancing like a fool, but it’s totally controlled!”) And it’s the mathematical nature of the dance, incidentally, that I think I found so appealing.
So, like all new discoveries, I’m now wondering how I could have gone this long not knowing that these dances existed. But if these listings of contra dancing organizations is any indication, it is a deeply rooted part of American culture, hiding in plain sight.
