Concord Contradance

For me, contradances aren't magical from the beginning. I started out the night of dancing at the Concord (MA) Scout House feeling shaky and foggy in the head. Of course, I had to start dancing the minute I had buckled my new character shoes and jump in halfway through the teaching of the dance. Then I had to swallow my pride and smile as people told me what to do and then told me, "Good," when I was "on." And try not to let my annoyance at all this distract me from remembering the next step.

I had a host of volunteer teachers. There's the elderly man who sang the music right in my ear as he swung me, then left me feeling guilty

for pursing my lips and pulling away. There's the sweaty, overweight guy my age who swings with his mouth open in a lazy grin, ready to drool, it seems, who also told me what to do or said "Perfect," when he was satisfied.

For those of you unfamiliar with contradancing, here's a basic description. At a contradance, people form couples and dance in two long lines from one end of the dance hall to the other. There were as many as three sets of dancers at the Scout House last night. Contradances are short sets of do-si-do's, swings, promenades, turns, and figure eights that repeat many times. With every repetition, each couple moves either up or down the hall in the line, with half the couples moving each direction, so that by the end of the dance, everyone has danced with everyone else in the line. That's why you can't avoid dancing with certain characters. It strikes me as very Democratic and nice. You should be able to courteously dance with anybody, even someone you don't particularly like.

It's one thing to swing with someone who's not your partner throughout the course of the dance and another to spend a whole 15 minutes dancing with a person. The real test of one's social skills comes when someone you don't like asks you to dance. One option is to avoid looking at that person so that they can't ask you. Another option is to lie and say you're taken. Another option is to say, "No, thank you," without explanation. Then you know that you'll hurt the person's feelings if you go on to dance with someone else. In the end, the best option is to dance with anyone who asks you and smile and have a good time. The only thing worse than a dancer you find annoying is a dancer you find annoying whose heart you've just broken.

Perhaps I write so much about the more difficult interactions at the contradance because those are the ones that made me think and the ones that I could describe realistically. It's easy to fall into clichés when describing classic, happy moments.

But there were many classic, happy moments at the dance last night. Along with the "annoying," swingers, there are men who make you feel like you're flying when you swing! There are times when everyone in the hall decides to stomp their feet or shout, "Hey," and the whole room reverberates. There are times when, instead of foggy in the head, "I feel pretty," and glow and smile and remember the dance every repetition.

The highlight of last night's dance was at the half-time break when my friends and I headed outside for fresh air. One of the dancers started singing English pub songs, and other people joined in. Many of the songs had choruses that I could pick up and sing along. My date, a singer, knew most of the songs. It was so nice to sing out there in the nice weather about how "Summer is a-comin' and Winter's gone away-oh."

I long to be one of those people who can be the spark of energy that turns a gathering of people into something wonderful. I mostly just join in when other people start things, be they conversations, dances, or song. How nice it would be to know how to make merry out of thin air!

After the dance, many of us - about twenty adults! - headed out for a late night swim. I felt like I were a hippy from the sixties. 'Nough said. The swim lasted about half an hour, long enough for me to get cold and want to get out. Again, I wished I could spark fun instead of just standing there with my hands wrapped around my sides. Well, we did get out eventually, of our own accord, not someone else's, thank goodness. We then headed to a pizza place, ordered our meals at 11:55, before the kitchen closed, and replenished our energy stores after a busy, merry night of dancing.