All About Contra Dancing: A Brief History of Contra Dance

Contra dancing is a form of social American folk dancing similar to square dancing. The contra dance is also known as English country dance, New England folk dance, a barn dance, or Appalachian folk dance. In contra dancing, long lines of couples dance together, performing simple footwork patterns, walking steps, and twirls. Dancers perform to folk music played by a live band featuring mandolins, banjos, and accordions, while a caller calls out the pattern for everyone to follow. Dancers usually wear comfortable shoes and clothes, making contra dancing a casual, social dance form.

Contra dancing traces back to seventeenth-century country dances. Throughout history, the contra dance has evolved.

• Contradanses: In the seventeenth century, contra dances made their way from Britain to France, where they were adapted into new dances called contra-dances or contredanses, which translates roughly to "opposite dance."
• Social dance: The French contra-dances returned to England and then made their way to the United States where they were reinterpreted again. During the eighteenth century, contra dances became a popular form of American social dance and were typically referred to as country dances. In the nineteenth century, contra dance fell out of popularity in favor of other couple dances, such as the waltz and the polka.
• Community dance: In the early twentieth century, there was a renewed push for contra dancing by Henry Ford, the head of Ford Motor Company. Ford saw the rise of the jazz scene in the 1920s as a corrupting influence and enlisted his friend Benjamin Lovett, a dance coordinator, to begin a dance program to teach contra dances.
• Influence: Today, the Country Dance and Song Society (CDSS) keeps the tradition of contra dancing alive.

Some of the recognizable characteristics of contra dancing include:

1. 1. Lines: Dancers perform the contra dance in long lines that typically run the dance floor or dance hall length. Two parallel lines of contra dancers face each other, with the person directly opposite being one's partner. Each pair of lines in contra dance is called a set.
2. 2. The caller: You don't need to be an experienced dancer to participate in contra dancing. Contra dances feature a contra dance caller, a person who teaches the steps and footwork to everyone before the dance, then during the dancing, the caller calls out the steps so everyone is in unison.
3. 3. Switching partners: The choreography in a contra dance will have dancers moving back and forth between two or three dancers. In the contra dance lines, dancers will move back and forth between the dancer directly opposite them and the next dancer in the line.

Contra dancing and square dancing are similar forms of country dancing. They share similar basic steps, such as promenades, swings, do-si-dos, and allemandes, and require comfortable shoes. However, there are some key differences to tell them apart:

• Number of partners: Square dancing features four couples, and contra dancing can be done with unlimited couples.
• Dance callers: In contra dancing, the caller teaches the dance steps to the dancers beforehand so that the caller can just call out the choreography during the dance. In square dancing, the callers prompt the steps during the performance without any rehearsal beforehand.
• Traditional music: Square and contra dancing are traditionally performed to live music, although modern square dance events often use contemporary recorded music. Contra dancing is set to live music, typically Scottish, old-time, French-Canadian folk tunes, and Irish jigs and reels. Banjos and accordions are popular instruments for these dances.

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