"Don't Mess With Tradition!" *

10/10/2012

5 Comments

 
So it appears that I've touched a couple of nerves when I made an offhand comment about quibbling with the "lady" and "gent" labels (or rather, the baggage I feel those terms carry) and it brings up a larger question, and one that actually brings in some other contra dance variants (techno contras, flourishes borrowed from other dances, and gender-free dances among them):

At what point does a variant on a tradition become not part of that anymore, and become its own thing? There are those who argue that "lead" and "follow" divorce contra from being a community dance (and others who feel that while "lady" and "gent" aren't perfect, there aren't really better alternatives as yet). Others might argue that having itinerant musicians and callers from elsewhere coming in (which seems to happen frequently, especially in the bigger contra dance communities) makes it less of a "community" dance.  Or if you don't have a fiddle in your band, or happen to use a synthesizer to loop your sounds, you're not really in the realm of "contra" anymore.

Most of the people I've talked to on this blog -- with a few exceptions, granted -- count techno contras as still part of the contra dance tradition, even if it's one they don't especially care for. 

So where's the line? At what point does contra not become contra anymore? Or is any possible deviation --  from an uneven (e.g., with true "actives" and "inactives"), proper, heterosexually-paired, flourishless dance done to live music with precisely one fiddle and no brass -- somehow no longer "contra?" 

(To me it seems like we're starting to get away from strictly "traditional" contra, but then again I don't really see that as bad as last time I checked we were in the 21st century, rather than the 18th. Evolving and elastic traditions are not inherently bad, in my book, but I'm curious about yours.) 

*(And yes, the blog title is a shout-out to the Foggy Bottom Morris Men's mummer's play callback.)
5 Comments
 

Blogger's Soapbox: The Pursuit of Novelty

01/30/2012

1 Comment

 
One of the more interesting themes that I have seen running through the various discussions on the "modern urban contra" scene -- alternative/techno contras included -- is an ongoing pursuit of novelty. Part of the reason that events with electronic dance music seem to appeal is ironically the thing that also created demand for live bands on the contra dance scene many years ago. For contra dancers now, live music is the (sub)cultural norm, which differentiates it from most other social dance scenes. This also means that nowadays, having recorded music for a dance is going to get attention, for good or ill, simply because it's unusual.

Perhaps the more interesting conversation to be had, however, is to talk about the subcultural norms that dancers are, by and large, NOT willing to mess with. The dancing may become slightly more improvisational, the music may shift from acoustic to electronic, but several other subcultural norms remain intact. Aimless, consequenceless flirting is generally acceptable to some degree (i.e., what happens on the dance floor, stays on the dance floor, and taking it too far usually reduces the number of willing dance partners one has); harmless eye contact; intergenerationality, whether we're dancing to the Free Raisins or "Free Bird;" a regular, largely chemical-free party where nobody gives a thought to  men in skirts and women who mostly don't wear high heels; being able to leave your water bottle and your bag (possibly containing your wallet) at the edge of the room and knowing it is unlikely to be messed with.* For the general population, all of these things are novelties. (I will refrain from comment on this fact and just leave it as is -- that is a totally separate rant/conversation.)

Before one pigeonholes alternative contra into the compartment of pure novelty-seeking, take a look at what parts nobody is trying to change at all. I would even go so far as to say that the things that alternative contra dance organizers are NOT changing would actually embody many of the reasons a lot of us go to the traditional(ish) contra events in the first place -- the rest of the debate is largely a matter of aesthetics.

* Common sense is still warranted, but by and large this has been true at the events I've been to.
1 Comment