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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.
== The Music ==
Contra music (like the dance itself) draws from Irish, Scottish, English, Canadian and American bluegrass traditions, among others. Individual bands drawing from any number of local traditions exist; a Zydeco flavored band has been a guest at Williams, and one New England caller and her band (the Black Kat and The Purelles) have developed "Rock and Roll Contras": dances written to fit to modified pop oldies, such as "It's My Party" and "Good Morning Starshine."
Tunes are usually jigs or reels that last 32 measures (64 beats) and then repeat. Within the tune are two distinct, equal-length phrases each repeated twice (therefore, 16 beats per phrase), the first usually lower in tone and with a narrower range and the second higher and wider ranging, often more intricate and "floaty." Within any one phrase, the first eight beats are usually roughly ascending, the latter eight descending in pitch.
This dependable "skeleton" determines the length of dance figures, and how they are arranged for 64 beats. A contradance figure is most commonly done for 8 beats, some for a full phrase of 16, and some for four beats. Few figures last other lengths of time; it is hard to make odder times fit the music. Dances also are composed with the structure of the music in mind. Some dances are even written to be danced to a particular tune (especually older dances) but the vast majority, and even these old ones, can and are danced to whatever tune the band wants to play. Dances, then, are written with the major turning points in the music in mind: a figure will nearly always change at the end of a phrase, and the mood of the figures will often change halfway through the tune.
The music tends to be quick and energetic. It is a rule rarely broken that contras should never slow down during a dance, though some bands do this rarely to dramatic effect. Melody is almost always carried by a fiddle, the signature instrument of traditional contradance music, but whistles, or guitar, piano, handdrums, banjo, mandolin, woodwinds of all kinds . . . literally any instrument is eligible to have some role in a contra tune.
== The Band and Caller ==
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.
The caller also works to keep things fresh. At first, he will prompt every move the dancers do, but rather than merely speaking he calls with a calculated lilt to his voice that makes it blend pleasingly with the music. He chooses the wording of his calls to place the important phrases on strong beats in the music. He even chooses the order of his words carefully for clarity, and has a few different ways of calling each move to fill different length of time, and to add variety. Above all, he watches the dancers for the times when they do and don't need him. When they are handling themselves, he is silent; when they falter, he jumps in for a phrase or two, and returns to quiet watchfulness. Traditional contradance does not feature the artful "patter calling" that sqaures are known for; a good contra caller is so good a teacher that no one needs him to speak for long over the music.
There is an interesting division between the callers and the bands. Often, they are booked seperately, and may not even meet each other until the night of. Typically, the band plays what it knows and wants to, and manages the energy level during a dance. The caller picks dances appropriate for the skill level of the group without knowing the tunes that will be played, and is repsonsible for the dancers' experience from start to end. He may change his dances if he sees a new group walk in, he may abort a dance midway, he chooses the tempo that the band plays at and when the dance will end. He is a charismatic, good speaker and teacher with an ability to sense what the dancers in his care need. The band members are sensitive too, but often in a quieter way, and mostly attuned to each other: they work as a perfectly communicating unit, able to make small changes to a tune to great effect, working always with each other and perhaps slight input from the caller.
