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Jackie Hall, Contra Dance Teacher
Contra Dancing
for One and All in the Townships. The church hall is packed. Youngsters frolic around the edges. Their parents and other dancers walk, sashay, skip or jig up and down the hall in two rows of long facing lines. On stage, a fiddler, guitarist and flautist keep a lively 6-8 beat, as soft-spoken Jackie Hall calls out the figures. Faces glow; smiles grow broader, laughter louder, as the evening progresses. Many abandon layers of sweaty clothing and even their shoes to swing unencumbered from partner to partner. This is good old-fashioned country-style fun and everyone is having a perfectly wonderful time! “In a room full of people who know the steps, you just fly!” says Jackie, who runs Contra Dance events at the United Church, in Lennoxville, Quebec, out of sheer love for the dance. Locals, young and old, are delighted she does, as are students from nearby Bishops University. “I discovered Contra Dance here,” says Ottawa-native Louisa Haché, a 21-year-old drama major at Bishops. “I’m a great fan. I never miss a dance!” Despite its heretical-sounding name, Contra Dance is a form of social dancing that borrows from Old English, Old French and American folk dance. Dancers form two parallel lines stretching down the hall, with partners facing (or contra) each other; hence, the name. Unlike square dancing, where four couples dance in a square, couples progress up and down the hall, dancing with each other and other couples they meet as they traverse the line.
Contra dancing is highly sociable. By evening's end, we had danced with and met almost everyone in the hall. The steps, or figures, are simple and few. The patterns repeat and a caller calls out the steps as you go: all this makes Contra Dance very easy to learn. Jackie runs a half-hour primer for beginners before each dance, which we found more than adequate. It was our first time Contra dancing, the crowd was friendly and welcoming and we enjoyed it immensely. “If you’re in Lennoxville, come and join the fun,” says Jackie, with a grin. “Anyone can do it.” And indeed they can!
Read more about country dancing here.
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