Changes

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, by contrast, 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 few, well-known dances. 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 still by far the most commonly danced.

Since then, the trend in contradance has been towards more frequent and more intimate partner contact, but never has 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 or; 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 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 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 at all. 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.