Dancing fun!

[kareina]

Got off to a slow start this morning, letting myself get distracted by actually reading all of the various "controversial survey" answers my friends posted. Oddly enough, after reading the mix of answers with which I agreed, or disagreed, or laughed outright at, I felt inspired to write up my own, waxing, perhaps, loquacious on some point than I might have done if handed the quiz cold. I eventually did get to work, on an exciting part of the thesis--editing! Yes, that is right, my advisor sent me back some edits for my thesis introduction! I managed to spend about an hour inputting his comments in the original document before taking a break to play a bit of D&D with clovis_t and head out to the contra dance. Had a wonderful time dancing! It is such fun! The Hobart Old Time String Band (also called the HOT String Band) is a talented group of people who make beautiful, danceable, music together. After the dance I was inspired, so I sat back to the computer and managed to get the rest of the changes entered in to the introduction. As a result the thesis is more than 900 words longer than it was yesterday, and I feel like progress is happening. (Though, not surprisingly, the short sections wherein he *didn't* suggest changes make me happier!)

Comments

[madryn-1960.livejournal.com]

Wonderful! Sounds great. I saw their poster. I should go sometime, but I don't know what "contra dancing" is. I guess there's only one way to find out!

[kareina.livejournal.com]

You would *so* love contra dancing!

The story I've heard for its origin: The English Country dancing of the Renaissance was imported to France in the 1700's, where they called it something that sounds like "couture" dancing, and then it travelled to the US in the 1800's, where the name morphed into Contra Dancing. By that time it was done in long lines of couples, which are broken down into sub-groups of four people. During the dance you do something with your partner, or your "contrary" (the other man in your set of four), or with the whole group of four, and at the end of the repeat of the pattern the two couples have changed places, one couple moving down the set to join a new group of four, the other moving up the set to join a new group of four. Some of the movements are similar to things from English Country dancing, others are quite different (some are the same as done in "square dancing"). I, personally, am very fond of the dances wherein one gets to "swing your partner" (stand in a ball-room dance hold position, and spin in a circle together, right foot staying pretty much in place beneath you, left foot pushing you around in a circle).

Because of the way the couples move up (or down) the line, dancing with both their own partner and every one else's partner as well, I once saw a guy say "I love contra dancing, where else will another beautiful woman leap into your arms every thirty seconds?"

Don't miss the next one! (Heck, unless there is an SCA event that weekend, don't miss any of the Folk Federation Monthly Dances--they are all fun!)