#contra dancing

(I wasnt even dancing for most of that time, contra is fairly strenuous exercise and I need to ease back into it and tonight was a test run for my knee and I was pacing myself and taking A LOT of breaks is what I'm saying)

(but just being in the presence of contra dancing for three hours was so joyful)

(I missed this so much)

(also it was PRIDE TECHNO CONTRA so it was a bunch of queers doing nerdy folk dancing to popular music)

(I love us)

The crowd was mostly middle-aged/older people; I was one of the few younger people there.

The band was GREAT.

It was VERY hot inside but they had fans and 2 drinking fountains.

One of the dances my line kept screwing up so we had to do it 3 times before it actually started.

They had waltz breaks between each section of contra as well as a Swedish folk dance called the hambo. I did the last waltz only (this does not count the contra dances, many of which I did), and the guy I was dancing with had no idea how to waltz either.

Some of more experienced dancers, usually older people, were VERY fast. So fast in fact that I couldn't keep up with them sometimes.

Dancing the robin part (follower; right hand) is easier than the lark (leader; left hand), because I have only been the leader in a partner dance once, and that was in high school with a friend.

The first dance I did; my partner for that one was also inexperienced so he and I broke the line a couple times by accident.

For those of you who don't know, contra involves switching partners every dance so you're with someone new. This means usually dancing with at least five or six other people, one per song. Sometimes people sit out on certain dances, especially if they're tired, which happened to me multiple times.

CONTRA ≠ LINE OR SQUARE DANCING. Yes, all of them are technically types of American folk dances. Yes, contra is technically danced in lines (partners are in opposite lines from each other; there are multiple of these lines), but line dancing is usually non-partner dancing to recorded music without a caller. Square dancing also has a caller, but it is not danced in lines; it’s danced in 4-couple squares, hence the name. There is also more swinging in contra than in square.

At one point our caller (bless this woman’s soul), upon realizing that people were leaving and there were fewer people to make multiple long lines, said in THE MOST MONOTONE VOICE I HAVE EVER HEARD, “I have a conundrum.”

It went so well!! Baby sister came with to help teach and we had SO much fun. Everyone at the party loved it, we made friends, the sound system worked, we had enough room--couldn't have gone better. <3