10 Things I've Learned About Alternative Contras

04/04/2012

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This week, Contra Syncretist celebrates its first birthday! I launched the site a year ago on Friday. 

Here's some of the cool stuff I've learned in that time: 
  1. Not all alternative contras are conducted to mainstream music that you would necessarily find in your local downtown dance club. Eileen Thorsos of Electric Camel fame spins and remixes "electrotrad" music, which focuses heavily on remixes of contemporary bands with a strong traditional/Celtic influence. dJ improper of the DC area mixes contemporary hits with songs by The Who, Kansas, and The Beatles. 
  2. Alternative contras can trace their roots to Lisa Greenleaf's experiments in the last decade, and to some private parties that anecdotally pre-date these. 
  3. There is some debate about whether alternative contras are better staged as outreach events to draw more people into the community, or advanced events to strengthen the shared experience of the existing community. (Feel free to weigh in on this idea over on the Forum.) 
  4. While there are many alternative contra events out there, regular series that are billed as such are comparatively rare. The first predictably-regular one (i.e., "third Tuesdays of the month" type schedule) was the Contra Sonic series near Washington, DC, which started in November 2010. 
  5. In 2011, DJs began to travel around in a way that live bands on the traditional contra scene have for years, injecting more variety into the experience. 
  6. There are hip-hop morris and "Extreme English Country Dancing" (xECD) counterparts to crossover contra, which bring in similar elements. 
  7. The people who are infusing the contra dances with other influences are by and large very much agreed that they do not want to see the acoustic and carried-on tradition go away -- they have differing reasons for looking into electronic music and other genres of music than are typically found in contra, but most will actively say that they wish to build upon the tradition that inspires them, and they see that as what they are doing with their syncretistic art; they do not seek to diminish it in any way, shape, or form. 
  8. Most of the leading techno contra musicians and DJs are men; two notable exceptions are Boston-based piano and accordion player and DJ Julie Vallimont (currently with Firecloud and other incarnations, as well as more traditional bands Nor'easter and La Banane Enchantée) and DJ and caller Eileen Thorsos of the Triangle Country Dancers community in North Carolina, who tours with her remixed "electrotrad" music. 
  9.  Instead of mixing the music to be square and go with the dance, some series write contra dances to specifically go with the alternative tunes.  
  10. Many alternative contras maintain the club atmosphere without strobe lighting effects, much to the relief of some contra dancers who get migraines. 
Thank you to everyone for coming on this journey with me so far! The Friday Flourish will update as usual on Friday and then we will have still more syncretistic goodness to come, and I've got a few ideas up my sleeve for the future! Stay tuned! 
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xECD

09/14/2011

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One of the interesting things when I've been looking around at the modern contra dance tradition is the really funky dichotomy that seems to be drawn between contra with flourishes and the insistence of many (I know, not all) flourish-heavy contra dancers that the opposite of contra with flourishes isn't contra dance but is in fact English Country Dance. In particular, thinking of Dancing Fool out in Washington state, which advertises itself as "All Thrills, No Frills, and especially No English," and one time when Steve and I went to the local ECD dance and someone threw in a flourish, only to be called an "unrepentant contra dancer!" To be fair, the latter comment was at least partially in jest. I think.

This also meant that I was particularly interested when regular Contra Syncretist commenter Perry Shafran pointed me to a Facebook group for "Extreme ECD" in the Forum. Essentially, the idea seems to be that it's ECD that takes the choreography as written and uses it as a framework, much like good flourishers do when they contra dance. It might be interesting to see how such things are received in the ECD community. I know I see fewer flourishes at ECD than I do in contra when I go, but I'm also usually paying more attention to my own dancing space in ECD than I am in contra since I don't do it as often.

I'd be interested to go try xECD sometime, at the very least, although I also know that the choreography in ECD -- at least for me -- tends to involve more active concentration than contra does. (That said, I do still enjoy ECD as well as contra and find the idea that they're opposites to be kind of bizarre; I can usually be found at dance weekends starting my Saturday mornings with ECD if it's available, and I occasionally head out to my local weekly ECD series.)

I welcome your thoughts and comments -- feel free to share in the comments section!
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