Informal Contra In Davis Square V |
May 26th, 2011 |
| calling, contra |
The dance last night in davis square
went really well. We had a great turnout of all three major food
groups: no one had to call too many times, musicians could take
turns dancing, and there were plenty of people to dance with.
We tried the redundant volunteer calling thing, which seemed to go well. I wrote out nine dances ahead of time with full calls (odt) (pdf) and when we did those dances we had backup callers on the opposite side as the main caller. I think it worked well. We couldn't do it all that much, though, because several callers had their own dances which weren't on the list.
We had enough people that we did la bastringue with two concentric circles, which we'd not had enough to do before.
Comment via: facebook
The double caller thing sounded unclear, because they didn't call at the same time, like a relay. it would be better if the backup caller would internalize the dance, so they could call it at the same time before the 8beat. biggest issue there was the rhythm section of the band, a drum would be pretty useful. the bass was good, if a bit quiet, and the accordion did a pretty good job when it came in. really good night! brought in new dancers, I got 3 newbies into it!
@Danner: there were two different double caller things. One was when we were doing a dance I'd prepared a volunteer caller sheet for, and the other was when there was someone just acting as an echo. I was trying to talk about the first one, but I think you're talking about the second one. I agree that it's much less useful if the second caller is calling late, and that that's going to be unavoidable when calling as a repeater.
If you know anyone looking to play drum for this sort of thing, send them my way!
Hey there i'm new to contra but i got hooked in Asheville, North Carolina. I'm home in MA for the summer, i live close to Davis, and i'm looking for some contras that are energetic, wild and a little bit more funky than your average contra (in terms of music). I bumped into this page when doing some searches online. Can you tell me more about this guerilla contra? Who plays the music? thanks
@Laila: we just get together to dance. Music and calling are by the people that show up. Some videos are on the page: http://sccs.swarthmore.edu/~cbr/davis.html
Or see: https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=636472975989