Traditional collision

Up to now my dances have been local and traditional, steeped in authentic New England old school. Tonight’s dance at the Scout House in Concord, MA, was the contra antipode to that. It signals where the tradition is headed.

The Scout Hall has a beautiful interior of exposed timbers and a slick, worn wooden floor. A sign on the wall says, "Please Do Not Dance in Street Shoes." This is a dance for the hard core dancers, the kind that the deep traditionalists moan and wail are destroying the old ways with their quest for target heart rates and nonstop swinging every contra. These dancers want it hot and fast, and the music (Latter Day Lizards) and the calling (Lisa Greenleaf) deliver.

But this scene has its own internal conflict. As David Millstone put it, it’s a case of "Be careful what you wish for," in this case the perennial question of, how does a contra dance community bring in fresh, young blood? This dance has been invaded by a massive contingent of teenagers. They dance wild and free, "like a bunch of puppies," one partner told me. They dance together, in their own line, and aren’t having any of this, We’re all in this together community stuff. They’re here to have a good time, and they don’t want no parent types telling them how it ought to be done.

But they’re really good, some of them. There’s a new sound on the dance floor these days, a fast, really loud, synchopated batter that a group of these kids will do during the balance step. You never know when it’s going to come, but it shudders the hall like a small earthquake when it does. Somehow the whole crowd of them signals to do it all at once.

It reminds me of, in Ireland, how I heard wailing and moaning about how the kids were just not obeying the set dance traditions. They were battering the floor too loud and, the worst of it was, the girls were the loudest. It was going to be the ruin of everything. Every living tradition has some conflict like this—it’s a sign things are alive and well. I can guarantee that in thirty years time the kids of these kids are going to be scandalizing their parents with the new moves they bring to whatever it is looks like contra dance then.

At the end of the evening a group of five kids got their Northumbrian rapper swords out, two foot long flexible things with handles on both ends, and performed a complicated dance to a jig, weaving in baskets and jumping over the swords and, at the end, lacing them symetrically to form a star. So this is where all these hot dancers have gotten their modern contra moves, from a 19th century dance from the north of England.
 

Comments

[Karen]

This book is going to be spectacular. Please include some of the blog text in it!

The development of the energetic "new style contra" in New England parallels the appearance of "new style square dancing" in Portland, Oregon. There's a little bit of it in Seattle and Bellingham now, and it is not for the timid or out-of-condition!

Are you going to be shooting at the Saratoga (Springs) Dance Flurry in February?

[romanlily]

We are dealing with some of these issues in our Atlanta dance community. How do we get new energy into the dance while honoring the "old-school" dancers and musicians? I love the image you chose for this entry. The more seasoned dancer looking away from the younger man in the skirt. Perfect.