Contra dancing 2011

Saturday night Tammy and I went to a contra dance.  This month the dance was held at the Senior Citizen Center in downtown Kalispell.  The room is a little smaller than the usual location at the Salvation Army Center.  Lots of people showed up so the dance floor was full.

The contra dancing group invited a Kalispell group of swing dancers to demonstrate some swing dances.  During intermission eight young dancers demonstrated several Lindy Hop styles of swing dancing.  The swing dancers also danced some of the contra dances have never done it before.  For one contra dance where Tammy and I sat out the dance they asked me to record them dancing using one of the member's iphone.

Tammy is not crazy about contra dancing as she thinks it is corny.  It was a role reversal as I had to encourage/drag her out onto the floor to dance.  It was fun swinging her around and around for that section of the dances.  I could never get her to balance as part of the balance and swing move.  Tammy would always go in for the swing move.

The people dancing ranged from a five/six year old girl to people who looked to be in their 70s.  The skill level ranged from people who danced before and knew the dance moves to people who never danced before.  As contra dancing is a social dance where you dance with your partner and with a series of other dancers, it could be a challenge when the other dancer was a shy young child not knowing what to do next.

I did pretty good as I only got confused or forgetful of the dance moves a few times.  Contra dances have a small number of dance moves with each dance being a different combination of some of the moves.   We had a caller to help people learn/walk through the moves for the particular dance before the dance started, then they called the moves during the dance.  We also had several performers playing live music.  They had a good sound for only two musicians.

We didn't stay for the whole dance as Tammy had her fill of dancing.  After the intermission where we saw the swing dancers perform I got only one more dance in.  Tammy wouldn't dance anymore and a woman in her 60s came and asked if I would dance with her for the next dance.  Tammy didn't mind, so I danced.