The First Movement

When people think of Waltzes they often think of stately, sophisticated dancing. Many movies portray dancing as this elegant display of man or womanhood.

Fuck that.

This project is all about getting down and dirty, from the music to the moves, whatever I can find, link, or think of to make it more about the dancing and less about how much air you get fit up your upraised nose.

I am going to start with a Contra dance a few friends have been spreading around recently.

A mix of a set dance, in this case a Contra called Hay in the Barn by Chart Gurthrey, for the dance progression

Calls:
Neighbor balance and swing
Chain
Half hey
Partner balance and swing
Chain
Half hey
Start over with a new neighbor

However the in between becomes a fusion of tango, hip hop, swing and blues.

2008 YDW Techno Contra from Forrest O. on Vimeo.

The amazing things about this video is one, the age of the dancers, and two, how almost choreographed it is. The later fusions are known as the more spontaneous of dances, where what you dance to the music is at the whim of the lead and determination of the follow, and mixing it into the structure of a set dance is, while to a level, somewhat common, to this extreme is not often seen. On the other hand, when improvisation kicks in to make things more entertaining, usually people end up getting confused and coordination of the set dance dies. So props to this group for what they did, a balance of a structured set and the chaos of what I would call the roulette dances.

Secondly the music.
I can speak from experience that in a lot of dance halls, especially ones that are going to call a Contra, or even other waltz, a Swedish Hip Hop song is probably not going to be the song of choice (excepting of course for a few of the local ones who are trying to kick Contra up to a younger crowd).
The music has ENERGY. Set dances are in the opinion of this writer, boring. Once you have done it once, twice, 10 times, it will, except for minor variations, be the same almost every time after that. Sure you can mix up the in-between like they do in this video, but really, being stuck in the same patterns, just doesn't do it for me. Throw in the same music or musical styles are often used for the same set dances, due to them meeting the beat of the songs, and you have a recipe for me falling asleep if dragged into it more than once. But if the music varies, if it kicks into something I would listen to anyway, even were I not dancing. Then it becomes something I want to jump into, I want to dance not only the structured part, but might be inclined to vary up the in-between.

In the coming days, months and dare I say years of this blog, you will often hear me rail about the energy of music. Sure you can dance to it, but that's not the point. DO YOU WANT TO DANCE TO IT, do you feel the music in that grubby little essence you call a soul. Does the song move you, get your feet moving without you noticing, do you want to sing along and laugh while dancing.
I don't give a damn if I can dance to a song if I can't feel it.

And another thing. If the song has energy, don't beat it into the ground. Energy is a limited commodity. If you play the song, every set list of every night there is a dance, people will get tired of it. Variety and research. Oldies and goodies are great to mix in with new and shiny. It keeps everyone on their toes wondering what the hell are you going to throw at them next, and keeps them going through the dance till the end, when the realized, dear god, they danced everything.

So once again, props to the people in the video, you guys have a great thing going for you, you all look fantastic, and goddamn that looks fun. You win.