Join us for a Contra Dance on Thursday, February 26th, 2025 at 6:00pm in the BMCC Student Union in Pendleton. Click here for detailed directions to the location. This event is sponsored by BMCC Arts and Culture.
The dance will feature live music from local musicians. All dances will be taught and called. No partner or experience is necessary and beginners are encouraged.
This event is is FREE for students, and open to all community members for a suggested $5 donation.
What is Contra Dancing?
Contra dancing has its origins in a range of folk traditions, including English country dance and Appalachian dancing. Dancers are paired up in long lines and follow the instructions of a caller. Callers teach the sequence of the easy dance steps before the music starts. No dancing or contra experience is required to attend a dance. The events are family friendly and inclusive. Beginners and first-timers are always welcome!
But I mean, what is Contra Dancing really?
What follows is a detailed description of how contra dancing works. Important Note: you don’t need to understand any of this to dance! The caller will lead you through everything and it will just “work”. Read this section only if you’re into knowing the details. You will also find this section very easy to understand once you’ve been to a contra dance.
At the start of each dance you find a partner. Each dancer has a role and will keep that role throughout the dance. Traditionally these roles were called “gents” and “ladies” but those roles have generally been replaced with “lead/follow”, “lefts/rights”, or in our dances “larks” and “ravens”.
The easy way to remember the roles is as follows:
Larks: ends moves on the Left
Ravens: ends moves on the Right
“Left” and “Right” here is relative to the way you are facing as a couple.
If you are a Lark, you will end moves with your partner on your Right side. You will end with the Raven on the Right.
If you are a Raven, you will end moves with your partner on your Left side. You will end with the Lark on the Left.
At the beginning of the dance, all larks stand in a long line next to each other, each facing their partner (the Raven) across from them. The line is formed in relation to the “Top” of the hall, where the band and caller are, like this:
The caller will ask the dancers to “take hands four from the top”. This means that groups of four will form small circles, starting at the top of the hall, so you and your partner will be in a small group with another couple, like this:
Note that in each group of four there is a couple closer to the top of the hall. These are called the “Active” couple. The other couple (closer to the bottom) are “Inactive”:
Contra dances can be danced in this formation (called proper formation), but most dances you encounter will be danced in improper formation. In an improper dance the caller will say:
“active couples change places”
This is a signal for all of the active couples to switch places across the lines and joining hands again in groups of four. At this point L’s and R’s will be alternating in each group of four, like this:
This is where the improper contra dance begins.
At this point, in your group of four, you have your partner and another couple:
- The person across from you in the line is your partner
- The other person next to you (up and down the lines) is your neighbor.
- The person diagonal to you is in your group with the same role. You will sometimes do moves with this person (e.g. “Larks allemande right once around”)
The caller will now call out the moves of the dance. One cycle of the dance is a pattern of 4 phrases of 16-beats which repeats. The beats of the dance match the beat of the music. Here’s an example contra dance notated with each move and the number of beats it takes up:
The A1, A2, B1, B2 represent phrases of the music. Each of those phrases is 16-beats.
Each dance move generally takes of half a phrase (8 beats), a full phrase (16 beats like B1 above) or sometimes a partial like the very last move above (2 beats).
There are dozens of contra moves, from very easy to advanced, but most contra dances you’ll encounter are made up of the same basic dozen or so moves. Examples:
- Circle left/right: circle in a group of 4
- Do-si-do: literally ‘back to back’, a basic move you might have seen in square dancing
- Allemande: a German dance style, but in contra dance a right or left palms-together turning step. The caller will tell you when to stop (“once around” or “one and a half to switch places”). Can be done with your partner, your neighbor, or the other Lark or Raven in your group.
- Swing: The contra move you’ll find in every dance: pivot spin with your partner. Can be done with a walking step or faster buzz step. Think holding hands with a friend and spinning in a circle.
- Balance: 4-count weight shift done before a swing to get momentum.
- Star left/right: hands in the center in a group of 4 and turn as a group in the direction you face.
- Long lines forward and back: take hands in long lines along the sides of the line, walk 4 beats towards the other line, then 4 beats back
- Ravens chain: Ravens grab right hands (like a handshake) and pull by each other to be “courtesy turned” on the other side by the Lark there. The turn ends with Larks on the Left and Ravens on the Right (as always)
- … and many more!
In any contra dance evening you will likely see all of those moves above and more, and all will be taught and reviewed by the caller.
During the dance you can expect the caller to call each move before it happens, reminding you what’s next.
You may find that you can remember the next move without needing the caller, since the pattern repeats over and over. Most contra dances have a flow to them that you’ll get the hang of after dancing it a few times.
What happens when you’re done dancing the moves with your group of four?
This is what makes contra dancing so much fun! Each dance is crafted so that you end the dance as a couple having switched places with the other couple.
What that means: if you were active (towards the top of the set, above the inactives) at the start of the cycle, you will now be below the inactives you just danced with and you will find a new inactive couple facing you ready to dance again. This is called “progression” and is what makes contra dancing work — otherwise you’d just keep dancing with the same group of four. Here’s a picture of before/after once cycle:
Notice how couple 1 (Active) danced with couple 2, then in the next cycle they dance with couple 4, the inactives in the group below them in the first cycle.
So, a nice thing to remember is that even if you lose track of what’s happening in the cycle, you always know that when the cycle ends and starts over, you should be looking for a new couple to dance with.
- Active couples progress down the lines, towards the bottom of the set
- Inactive couples progress up the lines, towards the top of the set
What happens when you get to the top or the bottom?
Imagine you are an active couple, starting the dance at the very top of the set, in a long line of dancers. You dance with each inactive couple in each cycle, slowly making your way towards the bottom. At some point you will run out of dancers and will have no one else to dance with!
This scenario will happen at the bottom of the set, and you will find yourselves alone with no one to dance with for one whole cycle. This is an important time to rest, take a breath, and switch places because on the next cycle you will now be inactive, working your way back up the set. At the top, when you are left out, you switch places ready to become active again and work your way back down.
In a short line you might make your way up and back down multiple times in one dance. In very long lines at large contra dances, you might only make to one end.
Why inactive vs. active? Aren’t both couples doing the same thing?
Sometimes, yes, but often no. In many dances the active and inactive couples will do different things in different parts of the dance. Examples:
- “Actives only, swing your partner”
- “Actives, face down between the inactives and form a line of four”
- “Inactives only, form an arch as the actives dive through”
This means it’s important to pay attention to instructions at the beginning of the dance. You may be inactive right now and ignore the instructions for the active couple, but at some point you will make it to the top, switch places and now you’re the active couple!