Contra dance sites on the web

What's 'contra'?

http://www.sbcds.org/contradance/whatis/

various attempts to define "contra dance"

http://www.dougplummer.com/contra.html

Doug Plummer's lyrical photos of contra dance, with equally lyrical notes: "Turning, moving, spinning, dresses swirling, music beating, eyes in contact with a partner, then another, then another, then another, and the fiddle turns a corner, the phrase repeats, the dance repeats. You smile. Your body smiles. Everywhere."

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Dancing tips

http://www.io.com/~entropy/contradance/articles/bob-g-the-womans-role.html

Dancing the Woman's Role by Bob Golder: "I feel that my dancing improved a great deal when I deliberately invested some time in dancing the woman's role. Any man can try this at a typical contra dance event; there's no requirement for you to be particularly interested in gender-free contras. See what it's like to do a traditional courtesy turn in the woman's role. Try a single twirl. Try multiple twirls. Learn the ladies' chain from a woman's point of view. ......" etc

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/jsivier/www/contra/tips.html

Tips For Experienced Dancers Dancing With Beginners: "Dancing well with beginners is a skill separate from being able to dance well with other experienced dancers. Revealing the joy of contra dance to a new person is, for me, one of the rewards of being an experienced dancer ... " etc. Don't ignore beginners - help them have fun and learn!

 

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Calling tips

http://www.dancerhapsody.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=CallersWorkshops

Seth Topfer's handouts for calling workshops. Short and effective. Contents: The beginner's workshop; Programming an evening, parts 1 and 2; The walkthrough; What kind of a caller are you?, etc. Also has sets of dances: Fun contra dances for a mixed crowd; Interesting contra dances for Novice Callers (helpfully categorised as to 'suitable for 1st/2nd/3rd/peak of evening ..'), '; Groovin' contras to end an evening; No brainers - surefire dances. RECOMMENDED.

http://seattledance.org/contra/design/

'Contra dance designer' allows you to check how a contra dance works - input the moves from an extensive menu and watch it performed in an animated diagram. Lots of fun and possibly helpful. ONLY works with Internet Explorer.

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/jsivier/www/contra/calling.html

Resources for callers: guidance on preparing a program, teaching the dances, and calling (prompting) the dances

http://www.io.com/~entropy/contradance/articles/three-minute-rule.html

Notes on the Three Minute Rule by Gene Hubert and Dot Kent: "I attended a dance event this weekend where the "3 minute rule" was invoked. This rule states that any caller who shall cause the dancers to spend more than 3 minutes walking thro Also has sets of dances for ugh a dance shall receive a pie in the face ........... "

http://www.latinsquares.com/Tunelist.html

A very useful tunelist by Eric J. Anderson, helping the caller by describing the characteristics of the tunes ("happy", "smooth and intense", "building drive and drama") and noting which are good as closers - e.g. the 'Cold & Frosty Morning' set is described thus:

" ...swirly B crashing into a balance and swing at the top of A1, our favorite. A dance like Box the Compass ... with contra corners throughout B and the partner b&s in A1 is perfect"

Also has some 'notes for callers' about how to work well with the band: who to talk to, what to say, when to say it.

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Writing dances

http://www.concentric.net/~ravitz/dance/chor.shtml#c

suggestions by Cary Ravitz (excellent dance composer) on how to go about creating a contra dance, figures and sequences he likes, how to evaluate the result, etc

http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/cgi-bin/ref/contra-wrapper-v11.perl?generate=new

Generate a Random Contra Dance by computer. More fun than useful.

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Playing the music and finding the tunes

http://www.ericdancepiano.com/Cathie.html

Cathie Whitesides is a great contra dance fiddler. This page describes materials used for her 2000 tunes workshop, with the tunes themselves in 'abc' format

http://www.dhebert.com/publications/index.html

Donna Hébert is another famous contra fiddler. This page talks about how to play fiddle for contra dancing - warming up, watching the walk-through, the 'groove', improvising ...

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/greenery/Minimal%20Ceilidh%20Tune%20Book/vamping/index.html

the absolute basics of vamping, plagiarised from an excellent book Interview with a Vamper by Peter Barnes (which you should buy - please regard my précis of his chapter 1 as a sales pitch for his great book)

http://www.latinsquares.com/Materials.html

Some articles and examples about playing contra piano by the highly-experienced Eric Anderson - overall approach, and technical details of how to get the effects.

http://www.library.yale.edu/~mkoth/what.htm

An article on What makes a good contra dance band?

http://www.library.yale.edu/~mkoth/medley.htm

An article on Choosing Tunes for Contra Dance Medleys

http://home.insightbb.com/~otter256/dance/fullmoon_index.html

Tunes used for contra by The Full Moon Country Dance Orchestra. You can download them all as an abc file. You should be able to see as them as notes, too, but there's currently (Dec 04) a glitch.

goodparking.html#GoodParkingTuneSets

The tune-sets currently used by Good Parking, the resident band for Leeds Contra Dance, in pdf and abc formats

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People with thoughts

http://www.dancerhapsody.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=CallersWorkshops

Seth Topfer's page described above. Recommended

http://www.io.com/~entropy/contradance/dance-home.html

Kiran Wagle has a wide selection of thoughts, opinions, information, and rants to offer, plus links to other people's articles on contra

http://www.bobarcher.org/dance/uk_us_comparison.html

Bob Archer was a very well-known English caller before moving to Seattle. His comparison of the US and UK dance scenes is very informative indeed.

http://www.cam.ac.uk/societies/round/dances/elements.htm

Hugh Stewart gives brief explanations of most of the moves in contra and in Playford-style dancing

http://www.concentric.net/~ravitz/dance/chor.shtml

Cary Ravitz , a great dance composer, explains a lot about many aspects - not just individual moves, but sequences of figures, what makes a dance good, and so on

http://www.musaique.com/contradance/articles/

Bill Tomczak (world's top contra clarinettist and a hero of mine) has a page called Contra Dance: Articles and History

http://www.nmc.edu/~hmorgenstein/Essays/Essays.htm

Henry Morgenstein has written lots of essays about dance. A bit wordy for my taste but with some good points.

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Contra Bands and Callers (UK based)

http://www.dancing-without-a-care.me.uk

Al Green is one of Leeds Contra's Tuesday evening club callers and has called at some of our Saturday evening Contra dances. He also calls with our resident band Good Parking.

http://www.goodparking.weebly.com/index.html

Good Parking is Leeds Contra's resident Tuesday evening club band and they have also played at some of our Saturday evening Contra dances. They are available to play for all sorts of Celebratory Events, Weddings, Parties, Anniversaries, Ceilidhs and Barn Dances.

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Contra Organisations (UK-biased)

http://www.contrafusion.co.uk

A new contra dance club starting up in Ashford (Kent, UK).

http://www.cambridgefolk.org.uk/contra/

Cambridge contra dance club has a list of dances, mainly contras (but not only)

http://www.neffa.org/index.shtml

NEFFA, the New England Folk Festival Association, is a mighty energetic body doing many things besides contra dancing. Excellent links page!

http://lists.ourshack.com/mailman/listinfo/contra-corner

Sign up for an email discussion group on promoting contra in the UK - much used for UK contra announcements

http://www.cdss.org/

CDSS (Country Dance and Song Society) is the US equivalent of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, but it has a lot more energy. It's about fun, enthusiasm, and getting other people to have fun. Check this out for some of the wonderful US dance camps. If you can stand today's US.

http://www.webfeet.org/

Webfeet : Dancing on the Web - not really about contra, but has links to bands and events for many types of dance

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PA and sound

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/bobmills/amu.html

Bob Mills has written a guide to doing sound (PA) for contra dances. You can order the book from CDSS

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Dance notation sites

http://www.dancerhapsody.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=CallersWorkshops

Dance sets put together by Seth Topfer. See description under 'calling tips' above. Recommended.

http://www.cambridgefolk.org.uk/contra/

Cambridge contra dance club has a list of dances, mainly contras (but not only)

http://www.concentric.net/~ravitz/dance/

Dances by Cary Ravitz

http://www.floydart.com/contras/

Dances by Alex Funk

http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/marilee/

Dances by Marilee Standifer

http://harbormist.com/mark/dances.htm

Dances by Mark Widmer

http://www.megalink.net/~pweeks/billsdances.html

Dances by Bill Olson

http://www.dancingthread.ca/condance.htm

Dances by Myra Hirschberg and Tom Calwell

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/1752/contra_books.html

A listing of contra dance books, in alphabetical order by author or editor

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Some interesting non-Contra sites

http://centrestage.me.uk/.html

A local West Yorkshire folk music forum. Look it up and add your comments and folk events.

http://www.AreYouDancing.com/

A national (UK) listing of forthcoming dance events.

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