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For many people, 'tis the season for parties and celebrating. Frequently, it is also a time of year where you're hurry-up-and-waiting for baked goods to bake, or there's down time while you're visiting family, or there's no work getting done at your desk job since people took time off. Or you've just finished your holiday shopping and you're kicking back with a congratulatory cup of a winter beverage and your technology fix of choice. Your local community's contra organizers are likely to be taking a well-deserved break before New Year's, so what's a 'Net-savvy contra dancer to do?

_If you've found something cool and contra-related while web surfing, please share with the rest of us! Happy Holidays to all!

So far we've analyzed many aspects of the techno contra genre, particularly with the music and the dancing and the way the two relate. However, there's an aspect of this that's so far gone relatively unexplored. One of the other pieces that both contributes to the atmosphere and is generally very different in a crossover contra as opposed to a regular one is the lighting.

Jeff Kaufman has wondered about incorporating the lighting to make the phrasing and calls more clear in crossover contras, and even posits that it may be a way to help hearing-impaired dancers stay in sync. Some callers have talked about how the generally lower lighting made it more difficult to see the dancers on the floor and thus keep them together. At the same time, sacrificing the "club style" lighting would take something away from the event (and the lighting can enhance or detract from the experience, even though it's taken for granted). There are plenty of ways to do it wrong, but I'd imagine there are also plenty of ways to do it right and set the mood without detracting from the dancers' experience. Does it make a difference between new-dancer-friendly techno contras and experienced-dancer-only techno contras (who theoretically might not need as much of a visual cue as to where they need to be when)?

I was digging around online this evening (read: taking a look at Google Analytics to see how you lovely readers are finding this blog), and I found something really interesting over on Jeff Kaufman's blog, offering a couple of perspectives on why using "lady" and "gent" in describing contra dance roles is or isn't sexist.

This was especially interesting since we've been talking about dancing switch lately on the YouTube channel.