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Contradance enthusiasts are often asked, "What (the heck) is contradance?" The question draws a [http://www.sbcds.org/contradance/whatis/ gammut of answers], and even after years of dancing it remains hard to respond well to. It's not a square dance, though many of the figures are the same as in square. It's not a line dance, though a ''set'' consists of two lines. It ''is'' an intricate, moving knot of dancers, in which you and a partner progress down the dance hall and back again, dancing a series of ''figures'' with each couple you encounter on the way. It has been called, "A roller coaster ride we make for ourselves."
==How Contra is Danced Today, at Williams ==
[[Image:Contradance2-05.jpg|right|thumb|A of the 2005 Valentine's Day contradance taken down the middle of a huge set joined into the figure "Long Lines, forward and back". Student band [[Rude Cider]] plays in the background.]]
Because this is the section most relevant to Williams, it will precede the section on [[Contradance#(A Rough) History of Contradance|history]], but you may wish to read that section before this one to get a fuller picture.
The contradance we know was born right around here, in New England, during the colonial days. Major dance communties also developed, and still exist, in Appalachia and Quebec, and today they influence each other through music and dance style exchange. But back in the colonial days of New England, contradance began its evolution from the more formal courtship dances best known today from Jane Austen movies. Like Latin, these old English Country Dances persist, are pleasant, but they are a dead language, with an emphasis on doing traditional dances in an old, formal manner.
By contrast, contradance, the young and vigorous offspring of English Country, is still very much alive and evolving. Once upon a time, the caller of a contra might call out "Longaways for as many as will," and the dancers would respond by making two lines, starting at the caller and stretching back to the "bottom" of the hall. A man would choose a partner and lead her over to the forming "set": a double line of all men in one, and all ladies in the other, partners across from each other. There would have been clapping, vigorous turning, perhaps even whooping and stomping, but much of the old English ways still remained. There were relatively fewdances, well-known dancesand they were quickly memorized. Lines were ''always'' single-sex, "swinging" your partner was relatively uncommon, and few moves were done with partner only.
Somewhere along the way, those American hicks started to break from the traditions of Mother England, who continued to favor English Country Dance into the Victorian days. Meanwhile, in America, the "improper set" was invented: partners would line up opposite each other, at first in single -sex lines, but before starting the dance the people in every other couple would change places, now forming a set where ''no one'' was next to someone of the same sex. This scandalous development was revolutionary: it changed the way dances worked, what moves could be performed, and made male-female contact a guarantee. One can imagine this only stoked the contradance fire. Nowadays, the improper formation is by far the most commonly danced.
Since then, the trend in contradance has been towards more frequent and more intimate partner contact, but inclusion of the whole set has never been lost. ''Swinging,'' in which two dancers hold each other and spin quickly around a central axis, was once entirely absent in most dances; now it is now an ''expected'' component of a dance, and many dances have dancers swinging for half the time.
If that weren't enough, another formation even more lascivious than improper was invented sometime during the fast and showy "club" era of American contradance. This is ''Becket'' formation which was , invented in Becket, MA the Massachusetts town of the same name and first used in the dance the Becket Reel. It is the same as improper, but before the dance partners and neighbors join hands in a ring and turn it 1/4 turn. This places partners on the same side of the set rather than across from each other, which has the necessary result of increasing partner contact ''even more.''
While once ''the'' thing to do to meet people and go out with friends, contradances are now dominated by the previous generation and older in the northeast and mid-Atlantic venues [[Jonathan Landsman|I]]'ve danced. Dance communities exist all over the country (see this excellent [http://tedcrane.com/DanceDB/ venue database]), mostly in the West and East, but anywhere large populations are found, there is some contradance. Generally, the larger a dance scene, the more likely you are to find anyone under 30. The future of contradance remains a mystery, then, but it does remain known and loved on college campuses, in many traditional communties, and I hear dances in the Northwest, and I believe in Quebec, draw some younger crowds.
== The Music ==
== The Band and Caller ==
[[Image:Rude_cider05.jpg|right|thumb|[[Rude Cider]], the in-house band for campus contradances, playing [[Dancing Folk]]'s 2005 [[Dancing Folk#Valentine's Day contradance|Valentine's Day dance]]. This incarnation of the band includes a [[piano]] (off left), 2 fiddles, a flute, a pennywhistle, 2 guitars, and a caller (far right).]]
Though there may always be 32 measures on the paper to play, good bands ''always'' tease and play with all of this. No good band plays the same tune the same way for the thirty repeats that a dance might last. Rather, they will often play a medley of two or three tunes, switching partway through the dance, and will riff and frolic within a tune, not at all unlike a jazz musicians might: passing a refrain from instrument to instrument, coordinating solos and dynamics, suddenly adding a new instrument, etc. There is no greater energy than what you experience at a good contradance, where the caller has set everyone solid on what they are doing, and leaves the rest to the constant bond of symbiotic energy flowing between the band and hall of dancers.
