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After choosing a partner and lining up 'across the set' from that partner, a 'caller' walks the crowd through the moves. These moves permute from dance to dance, creating different patterns of movement, but cycling once through the dance (or 32 measures of the music, which repeats to fit the dance), you always find yourself and your partner at the beginning again, only with a different couple to dance with.
This may seem a little complicated, but all levels of experience can dance together and still have tons of fun. Participating demands no grace or poise (these can be added later), and some describe it not as dancing, but as getting yourself to the right spot at the right time, or walking around the dance floor. Really, if [[Sean A. Carollo '07|Sean]] can do it, you can do it. Footwork can be just as simple as walking (preferably in time to the music). But more experienced dancers add plenty of style, finesse, and variations to test themselves and thrill their partners.
Contra music (like the dance itself) draws from Irish, Scottish, English, Canadian and American bluegrass traditions, among others. Melody is usually carried by a fiddle or a whistle, or guitar, piano, handdrums, banjo, mandolin... pretty much any instrument is eligible to play a contra tune. Tunes are usually jigs or reels that last 32 measures and then repeat. They tend to be quick and energetic.
