contra contra ceilidh
Dec. 12th, 2010 11:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timerippleSo last week in my party-induced drunken haze I agreed to go contra dancing the next day.
Now, ever since Boston Harbor and Fiddleheads: The Next Generation and BCMFest-type things, I’ve been to a few ceili/ceilidhs and done pretty okay. As long as things are explained and rehearsed slowly, I can manage and even enjoy it. Ceilidh dancing is all about having a good time and rocking out. Ceilidh nobody really minds if you screw up, not all that much anyway.
Contra minds.
We went to the dance out in ----, and I had totally forgotten (or never really registered) that contra and ceilidh are so very different, or so they seem to me. Contra is so much more about precision, correctness, getting it right. This was also probably an isolated beginner-unfriendly dance, since in addition to being full of experts there was no beginners’ workshop, and barely any teaching of the dances by the caller. Once-through at speed and go!
It soon became apparent that I had no clue what the hell I was doing. Except for the swing-you-partner, ‘cause that I could do, it turned out. Evidently those hours of dance workshop at Boston Harbor paid off. But there we never did never did weird half turn things or diagonal spins.
It was all very humiliating. It did not help that one of my partners kept trying to talk to me when I was obviously trying to concentrate on remembering what to do next. Most people were very polite and kind to my face, but I know for a fact they minded terribly.
It didn’t help that the caller was also very hard to hear, and barely bothered to actually call.
Or that the music was kind of techno. There was one fiddle and a loop machine, so he barely had to play, and really, what’s the point in that? He did go into an Owl City song at one point, though, and it’s a good thing I was sitting that one out because I cracked up hard.
I’d put my hair up to keep it off my neck, but after I let it half down during the break I got a lot more offers. XD Note to self: sweat be damned!
The last two dances did not suck. I guess I’d finally found some muscle memory, plus I started paying really close attention to the caller right from the get-go, and he had to actually explain the dances because I guess nobody else was familiar with them either. While we were out, Second-to-last Partner held my hand and rocked out. What could I do but join in? I totally fail at normal dancing though. XD Still, he was enthusiastic and didn’t seem to hate me. Unlike Talky Guy. Geez. Why ask a girl to dance if you’re just going to talk demeaningly at her the whole time? I mean, there's condescension, and then there's outright mockery. Dude was cruising for a smackdown. Er, set-down, I guess, this being an extremely civilized dance and not an episode of Buffy.
Being so close to so many people is very strange. Balance-and-swing is dizzy-making.
What the wonderful, sweet people I was with clearly didn’t realize beforehand (even as they assured me that the dances were taught, it would be fine, people were very friendly, just smile a lot!) was that I am not a dancer; I do not pick things up easily; there is in me no impulse or instinct for dance of any kind and thus I need a lot of time to get it right. Nothing physical comes to me naturally, gracefully.
My parents used to go contra dancing when I was a child. I would hide under the tables or run around outside or explore the storage rooms. I would stare at the dancers, but stare more at the stage, longing to be in the band. I never danced. I wanted only the music.
Things gotta change a little, sometimes, I guess. The last dance was genuinely fun. My partner was a former acquaintance, and he said, "Come back some time when there's actual fiddle music."
Maybe I will.
Now, ever since Boston Harbor and Fiddleheads: The Next Generation and BCMFest-type things, I’ve been to a few ceili/ceilidhs and done pretty okay. As long as things are explained and rehearsed slowly, I can manage and even enjoy it. Ceilidh dancing is all about having a good time and rocking out. Ceilidh nobody really minds if you screw up, not all that much anyway.
Contra minds.
We went to the dance out in ----, and I had totally forgotten (or never really registered) that contra and ceilidh are so very different, or so they seem to me. Contra is so much more about precision, correctness, getting it right. This was also probably an isolated beginner-unfriendly dance, since in addition to being full of experts there was no beginners’ workshop, and barely any teaching of the dances by the caller. Once-through at speed and go!
It soon became apparent that I had no clue what the hell I was doing. Except for the swing-you-partner, ‘cause that I could do, it turned out. Evidently those hours of dance workshop at Boston Harbor paid off. But there we never did never did weird half turn things or diagonal spins.
It was all very humiliating. It did not help that one of my partners kept trying to talk to me when I was obviously trying to concentrate on remembering what to do next. Most people were very polite and kind to my face, but I know for a fact they minded terribly.
It didn’t help that the caller was also very hard to hear, and barely bothered to actually call.
Or that the music was kind of techno. There was one fiddle and a loop machine, so he barely had to play, and really, what’s the point in that? He did go into an Owl City song at one point, though, and it’s a good thing I was sitting that one out because I cracked up hard.
I’d put my hair up to keep it off my neck, but after I let it half down during the break I got a lot more offers. XD Note to self: sweat be damned!
The last two dances did not suck. I guess I’d finally found some muscle memory, plus I started paying really close attention to the caller right from the get-go, and he had to actually explain the dances because I guess nobody else was familiar with them either. While we were out, Second-to-last Partner held my hand and rocked out. What could I do but join in? I totally fail at normal dancing though. XD Still, he was enthusiastic and didn’t seem to hate me. Unlike Talky Guy. Geez. Why ask a girl to dance if you’re just going to talk demeaningly at her the whole time? I mean, there's condescension, and then there's outright mockery. Dude was cruising for a smackdown. Er, set-down, I guess, this being an extremely civilized dance and not an episode of Buffy.
Being so close to so many people is very strange. Balance-and-swing is dizzy-making.
What the wonderful, sweet people I was with clearly didn’t realize beforehand (even as they assured me that the dances were taught, it would be fine, people were very friendly, just smile a lot!) was that I am not a dancer; I do not pick things up easily; there is in me no impulse or instinct for dance of any kind and thus I need a lot of time to get it right. Nothing physical comes to me naturally, gracefully.
My parents used to go contra dancing when I was a child. I would hide under the tables or run around outside or explore the storage rooms. I would stare at the dancers, but stare more at the stage, longing to be in the band. I never danced. I wanted only the music.
Things gotta change a little, sometimes, I guess. The last dance was genuinely fun. My partner was a former acquaintance, and he said, "Come back some time when there's actual fiddle music."
Maybe I will.
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no subject
Date: 2010-12-13 08:06 am (UTC)(I am staying up late working on paper-brained right now)
no subject
Date: 2010-12-13 04:11 pm (UTC)Go go paper!