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→(A Rough) History of Contradance: finishing
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 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, 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'Section ' thing to do to meet people and go out with friends, contradances are now dominated by the previous generation and older in progress''the northeast and mid-Atlantic venues I' How things have changedve danced.One line would be Dance communities exist all of menover the country (see this excellent [http://tedcrane.com/DanceDB/ venue database]), mostly in the West and across from them a line of women onlyEast, but anywhere large populations are found, each man across from his partner for that dancethere is some contradance. Contra music (like Generally, the larger a dance itself) draws from Irishscene, Scottish, English, Canadian and American bluegrass traditions, among othersthe more likely you are to find anyone under 30 at all. Melody is usually carried by a fiddle or The future of contradance remains a whistlemystery, or guitarthen, pianobut it does remain known and loved on college campuses, handdrumsin many traditional communties, banjoand I hear dances in the Northwest, 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 energeticI believe in Quebec, draw some younger crowds.
