Several people at Quaker Meeting today wanted me to share this message I spoke at Meeting for Worship this morning. So here’s the gist of it:
Last night I attended two dances.
I ended the evening at a soul party in Fort Greene. There was a certain kind of joy in the room, with a crowd of young people enjoying the music being performed by the skilled musicians. But at a certain point I started feeling like this was a room crammed full of people all dancing alone.
I started the evening at a very different kind of party. Right below us in the common room was a contra dance organized by our welcoming committee.
I have long had my own personal reservations about contra dancing. The idea of having a leader call out the steps and everyone following along seems to me very unquakerly. And contra dancing is a bit too country and quaint for my tastes.
What I always forget is how much fun contra dancing actually is. After a certain amount of time learning and practicing the basic steps, everyone relaxes and there is a joyful abandon in the room that is remarkable.
If you have never experienced contra dancing, it’s quite wonderful the various patterns and configurations of the dance. You might start off dancing with just your partner, and then there are four of you dancing together, and then six, and then the whole room dancing together, and then back to just you and your partner. At a certain point in the dance you make a tiny connection with nearly every person in the room, whether it be a touch, a glance, or a smile.
In that light, contra dancing seems to me very quakerly.
[CC-licensed image by grassvalleylarry. thanks!]
Sounds a bit to me like the Regency dancing I’m doing right now. There are set moves across the spectrum of dances and they were often called out by the lead couple when not following a specific dance for more a more spontaneous dance – much more lively than the stately dances we see in movies.
Every couple is a “1” or a “2” alternating so that the ones progress down the line, the twos up, at the end of the line you switch to the other roll and work your way back.
Over the course of the song you and your partner end up dancing with a slew of other people as each phrase is set with a group of four as you progress.
The better you know the set moves, the easier it is to adapt to calling and you have face time to interact with other people as talking during the dance was encouraged and eye contact extremely important.
Ah neat, I was wondering what this newfangled social dancing you were doing was about.
Oh, oh, I want to go contra dancing with you!!!! I went to this thingy in Seattle ( http://www.nwfolklife.org/ ) 3 years ago that had all sorts of dancing — I tried everything from Chinese dance to Morris dance to Hungarian folk dance to AfroPeruvianWhatnot, but the one that stuck the most with me was Contra. It was so much fun, I took every chance I could to go back to the contra tent and dance with complete strangers in flower-print dresses and Bloch Dansneakers. *grin*
If you ever do this again, PLEASE ASK ME ALONG! I totally want to do it again! (And no one will go with me here 🙁 )
will do!