We just got back from a regional folk music festival. Yesterday at the festival, a friend of ours who is a budding contradance caller taught a workshop on contradance, and called a dance later in the evening. (For those who may not be familiar with contradance, try reading this and watching this.) At the evening dance, I asked a musician, a woman I know just slightly, if she would be my partner for one of the dances. At the end of the dance, she surprised me greatly be saying "This made my year!"
Dancing can have that sort of effect on people...
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So, I suppose that these days, when people talk about dancing, they generally mean the sort of free-form rock & roll or club dancing that has been popular since, well, since the birth of rock & roll. If you're not blessed with coordination, one could end up making moves that look like this:
Having been born into the rock & roll generation, I have done my share of that kind of dancing, though with more coordination than displayed above (one can hope). However, since learning how to contradance, I have come to understand how group dancing and couple dancing have something to offer that dancing to rock & roll really doesn't address.
In a contradance, you perform a sequence of figures with your partner, and another couple, called your neighbors, in a long line of couples. By the end of the sequence, you have passed by that couple you were dancing with and are facing a new couple, and the sequence begins again. At a really good contradance, everyone is exactly where they should be, and everyone knows what figure comes next, and the dance gels perfectly. This last happened for me at the other folk festival we went to this summer the Old Songs Festival. During that dance, I was so filled with joy that I felt as though I was floating off the floor. It did not hurt that the band was a Quebecois ensemble, whose waltzes were reminiscent of the musettes that my mother loved. (For an example of a musette, listen to this.) I was caught in a vortex of music and movement and memory, and I was overwhelmed by the emotion at times.
I don't really understand how this act of organized social movement can have such a profound effect, except that we as humans have been doing it since we've been humans. And it must have been what my dance partner at last night's dance must have felt.
While I am happy that I managed to make her year, my hope is that she gets out to dance a bit more, for her own good. Now THAT could really make her year!
Now to the comments!
From Dragon5616:
What does G.O.P. really stand for? greenbird starts the game and lots of Kossacks play in Sunday Talk: What's the big deal? by Silly Rabbit (AKA Trix).
From ezdidit:
In Mark Sumner's recommended diary The Only Deal is No Deal, S M Tenneshaw makes a great comment.
From leu2500:
BobBlueMass made this top comment in Lefty Coaster's Rick Perry says "I've been called to run for president"diary
From your humble diarist:
In sarahproudandtall's recommended diary The Sad Long Life of David Brooks, Yellow Canary makes an apt comparison of preferences, and in response, Seneca Doane makes an even more apt statement of preference.