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September-October 2007
CONTRA DANCE:
ESSENCE OR ILLUSION?
By Valerie Cooley
When I was in 9th grade journalism, I wanted
to work for Life Magazine when I grew up, traveling the world with nothing but
a Leica and a battered typewriter. In 10th grade journalism I hated
the teacher and changed my mind. I kept taking pictures, though, nothing
brilliant but fun. That is, they were until I tried capturing the joys of
contra dancing. I got hundreds of pictures of happy people in colorful,
idiosyncratic clothing, engaged in earnest but incomprehensible chaos, but
nothing to show my aunt in Ohio why it was fun. The only thing I ever caught
that looked like exuberance was posed.
I realized I wasn’t alone when I Googled “contra dance
images” last March, trying to find photos to display at our Celtic Festival. I
looked at twelve hundred pictures and found one good, usable photo. Just one.
It showed three couples, all swinging. Three skirts floated merrily in the air.
The background was a blank wall. I blew it up and looked again -- it was a
painting. No wonder the skirts were synchronized and the dancers didn’t overlap
with twelve others. Giving up, I enlarged some drawings of right hand stars and
do-si-do’s that were orderly except for the occasional person kicking his heels
in mid-air.
Therefore, when Karen Olsen decided to choreograph a
dance for the Celtic Festival, I was quite excited. Her mission was to devise a
dance that would show, clearly, why contra dancing was so much fun. The moves
and patterns we love had to look logical and beguiling instead of chaotic.
There had to be more than happy faces to indicate joy and exhilaration because
smiles were barely visible at the back of the auditorium.
Stacy Rose, who was playing in three groups as well as
coordinating the Festival, was apprehensive. We’d done three demos at last
year’s festival – a contra, a waltz, and an English country dance --and they
were well received. Was it really necessary for Karen to divide her time
between band practice and writing a whole new dance?
Yes, it was; Karen had a vision so Stacy gave her
blessing. Recruiting dancers was a bumpy road. Everyone worked full time and
lived 20 or 30 miles from everyone else. She needed six dancers but couldn’t
find a third man. Finally she persuaded Richard, a ballroom dancer who had
never contra danced before, to try it. Kay, who was rehearsing for a play at
the same time, kept missing dance practice and Karen, who was playing in the
band for the dance, kept taking her place.
One night I stood in for a missing dancer and
experienced a great work in its infancy. It started with two couples doing
Petronella turns, ladies’ chains, promenades, right and left stars, a couple
do-si-do, and a hey (not necessarily in that order). When they finished, they
raised their arms in delighted surprise as Karen and Davy joined them for a
fast-moving three-couple set. They swung, wove through mirror heys, gypsied,
and rolled away into new positions. Bits of contra and English country dancing
were blended and further modified to achieve the effect Karen wanted. “In
contra,” she says, “you’re having fun with your partner and group but there’s
an ‘interior’ joy that isn’t obvious to the bystander, and that’s what I want
the audience to see.” Sometimes the timing didn’t work or a move was awkward
and they’d change it. It was a work-in-progress and I couldn’t wait to see it
on stage.
Richard, the ballroom dancer, learned fast and well, but
Kay had to drop out. Karen happily took her place.
“How are you going to play your concertina if you’re
dancing? asked Stacy.
“Brian can play his mandolin,” said Karen.
“In TAGIPUB,
the all girl band? asked Stacy.
“Yes,” said Karen. “You’ll find a way to explain it”.
And so it
was. TAGIPUB (The All Girl Impromptu Pick-Up Band) played a glittering
set. Karen slipped out and “Brianna”, with a bandana on his head, slipped in.
Richard, Ginny, Paul, and Lynn
did their four-person set, a frenzy of joyous action with not a trace of chaos.
Karen and Davy fairly flew in, greeted with open arms that drew them into the
second dance. It was fast, spirited, and precise. Skirts flared in unison and
arms made gleeful gestures never before seen at a contra dance but very
expressive of the “interior” experience. They stopped, they bowed, they
disappeared, leaving people still applauding their magic act. It had done
exactly what Karen had envisioned: it showed the audience what contra dancing
really felt like.
I went back stage. “How did you do it?” I asked. “I
swear your feet never touched the floor.”
“They didn’t,” said Karen. “We skipped. Every second of
it. I thought we’d die. We’d gotten everything perfect – our exuberant
gestures, our split-second timing -- but Paul took a video and we looked as
though we were walking all the time, or worse -- plodding through mud.”
Skipping! And
I hadn’t noticed. I played it back through my brain and, yes, they had skipped.
Amazing.
If even a live dance demonstration can’t convey the
spirit of the dance without some fakery, no wonder I can never photograph it.
The sense of movement needs to be intensified somehow. A
little blur, perhaps. But I think perhaps I’ll just leave the camera at home
from now on and go for the interior experience.
Valerie Cooley is living in Coos Bay, Oregon. When she's not playing with her
beautiful and brilliant young granddaughters, she paddles her kayak on the bay,
watches birds, gardens, and contradances once a month
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