contra dance
This weekend was Knoxville's annual contra dance festival. I hadn't intended on going. But the out of town event that I had hoped to attend didn't materialize. And in exchange for loaning my drum set to the drummer for the festival band, I was offered free admission. So I went over there on Saturday night, thinking that I might run into a few old friends.
For the benefit of people who didn't know me then, I contra danced fairly avidly for about 17 years, and stopped doing so about 4 years ago when I got into Lindy Hop. The first few years of contra dance were fun, but gradually the dance became less fun and harder on my body. In a nutshell: I got very tired of people acting like I was their favorite person in the world on the dance floor, and not giving me the time of day once the dance was over. I got tired of dancing with people who didn't care at all about dancing to the music or with each other - especially those who would "compensate" for a bad dance by making it their own and disrupting the dance for other people as much as possible. I got tired of dancing with people whose idea of "fun" was to put as much weight onto my knees and feet as they could. I got tired of dancing to musicians who couldn't keep a beat. And I got tired of creepy women flirting with me and expecting me to respond in kind.
I don't want to give the impression that all contra dances that I went to were like that - there were certainly some very friendly people, some very good dancers, and some excellent musicians. But the problems seemed to get worse over the years, and they were especially bad in Knoxville. By the time I stopped contra dancing regularly, pretty much all of my favorite dancers in Knoxville had long since stopped attending. I stubbornly stuck to it until circumstances forced me to look elsewhere. By the time I left, the only reason I was still coming to Knoxville contra dances was to connect with one or two real friends. And one of those friends died of a heart attack soon after I stopped coming.
In my memories of contra dance now, the memories of the frustration and disappointment crowd out the memories of the fun.
But back to this weekend. As I said, I went to the Saturday night dance. I did, in fact, get to reconnect with a few old friends, and I met one or two new people (but only one or two) new people who were really fun to dance with. I had two or three really fun dances, a couple more that weren't so bad, and a lot that had me thinking "I should have stayed at home and gotten work done". My body didn't hurt as much as it used to - knowing how to use my core helped a lot with the knee pain, I think - but my feet still hurt while I was dancing, and I sat out about every other dance.
The whole time I was there - including not just Saturday night but also when I brought the drums over on Friday afternoon and when I picked them up on Sunday afternoon - people kept asking me if I were going to "come back" to contra dance. It was as if I had been married to someone for several years, had a difficult divorce, and four years after that my ex's family and friends were asking me if I weren't going to get back with her. The last time someone asked me that question, I snapped "Hell, NO!".
To all of my former contra dance friends: there are a lot of you with whom I'd love to be better acquainted, or reacquainted. But if it happens, it is almost certainly going to happen outside of the context of contra dance. No offense is intended to those of you who still enjoy it, but I've moved on.
And I don't want to diss contra dance. There are a lot of aspects of that dance that I still find admirable. One is its accessibility - anyone who can walk in time to music can learn it, and that makes it a dance that can be very inclusive of lots of different kinds of people. It can really be a community dance. Another is the tradition that contra dances are done to live music, which is wonderful in so many ways - it helps preserve not only some genres of folk music but also helps preserve a connection between musicians and dancers. I also used to like the way that contra dances seemed to teach respect for every person's individuality - though by the time I stopped contra dancing I found myself wondering if that were still the case.
From my now very-distant viewpoint, and based on a very small sample size, I get the impression that contra dancing is dying. This makes me sad. I hope the dance finds new blood and new vitality. But I can't save it.
For the benefit of people who didn't know me then, I contra danced fairly avidly for about 17 years, and stopped doing so about 4 years ago when I got into Lindy Hop. The first few years of contra dance were fun, but gradually the dance became less fun and harder on my body. In a nutshell: I got very tired of people acting like I was their favorite person in the world on the dance floor, and not giving me the time of day once the dance was over. I got tired of dancing with people who didn't care at all about dancing to the music or with each other - especially those who would "compensate" for a bad dance by making it their own and disrupting the dance for other people as much as possible. I got tired of dancing with people whose idea of "fun" was to put as much weight onto my knees and feet as they could. I got tired of dancing to musicians who couldn't keep a beat. And I got tired of creepy women flirting with me and expecting me to respond in kind.
I don't want to give the impression that all contra dances that I went to were like that - there were certainly some very friendly people, some very good dancers, and some excellent musicians. But the problems seemed to get worse over the years, and they were especially bad in Knoxville. By the time I stopped contra dancing regularly, pretty much all of my favorite dancers in Knoxville had long since stopped attending. I stubbornly stuck to it until circumstances forced me to look elsewhere. By the time I left, the only reason I was still coming to Knoxville contra dances was to connect with one or two real friends. And one of those friends died of a heart attack soon after I stopped coming.
In my memories of contra dance now, the memories of the frustration and disappointment crowd out the memories of the fun.
But back to this weekend. As I said, I went to the Saturday night dance. I did, in fact, get to reconnect with a few old friends, and I met one or two new people (but only one or two) new people who were really fun to dance with. I had two or three really fun dances, a couple more that weren't so bad, and a lot that had me thinking "I should have stayed at home and gotten work done". My body didn't hurt as much as it used to - knowing how to use my core helped a lot with the knee pain, I think - but my feet still hurt while I was dancing, and I sat out about every other dance.
The whole time I was there - including not just Saturday night but also when I brought the drums over on Friday afternoon and when I picked them up on Sunday afternoon - people kept asking me if I were going to "come back" to contra dance. It was as if I had been married to someone for several years, had a difficult divorce, and four years after that my ex's family and friends were asking me if I weren't going to get back with her. The last time someone asked me that question, I snapped "Hell, NO!".
To all of my former contra dance friends: there are a lot of you with whom I'd love to be better acquainted, or reacquainted. But if it happens, it is almost certainly going to happen outside of the context of contra dance. No offense is intended to those of you who still enjoy it, but I've moved on.
And I don't want to diss contra dance. There are a lot of aspects of that dance that I still find admirable. One is its accessibility - anyone who can walk in time to music can learn it, and that makes it a dance that can be very inclusive of lots of different kinds of people. It can really be a community dance. Another is the tradition that contra dances are done to live music, which is wonderful in so many ways - it helps preserve not only some genres of folk music but also helps preserve a connection between musicians and dancers. I also used to like the way that contra dances seemed to teach respect for every person's individuality - though by the time I stopped contra dancing I found myself wondering if that were still the case.
From my now very-distant viewpoint, and based on a very small sample size, I get the impression that contra dancing is dying. This makes me sad. I hope the dance finds new blood and new vitality. But I can't save it.