Enjoy!
Dancers are Steven Roth & Ryan Holman.
Carry on Dancing,
CS
Contra Syncretist |
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This week's flourish is a simpler one that Steve has seen in a few different geographic spots around the country. It's a variant on an allemande that can add a little fun to the move. Just make sure you're paying attention to where you need to be and get there when you need to be there. Enjoy! You, too, can have your flourishes featured! Drop us a line!
Dancers are Steven Roth & Ryan Holman. Carry on Dancing, CS One of the most fun things about the Contra Syncretist project is how, since the techno contras tend to be events rather than series (or series of individual events), people get really excited about them as this new special shiny thing. Take, for instance, musician Julie Vallimont talking about this year's (official!) Flurry Festival (Saratoga Springs, NY) techno contra, to be played by Firecloud:
"The main exciting thing for me is having a techno contra [officially] at the Flurry for the first time, and making it welcoming and accessible to everyone.... I like how in techno contra you can create the atmosphere and you can go outside yourself for a while (that's what [our] costumes are about).... We just want to have a good time and want people to dance and not want to stop, and maybe get in a trancey sort of place, make it feel like an afterparty, cool down and heat up all at the same time and have fun with everyone." She continues, "We're going to be in the [Melita] Ballroom for the techno contra, so it'll be a little more intimate; we'd rather it be too crowded than too empty..... We've also got a four-person lighting team working on this event." She also mentioned that Firecloud will be debuting some new material, which is particularly cool since last October they added DJ Nanocannon (a.k.a. Andrew Hlynsky) to their lineup. "We’re trying to create an experience," says Julie, "but it’s ultimately the dancers who are going to show up and create the experience." Hope to see some of you there...Steve and I will be there for at least part of the dance (it runs from 12:30 AM to 2:30 AM Saturday morning -- or does it still count as Friday night at that hour?), and of course we're going to be at the full Flurry Festival too, which promises to be lots of fun. Now, where did I stash that suitcase...? Update, 2/14/2013: Edited quotation per Julie's request. This is the latest Van Norstand sequel to the viral "Cool Hip Dancers" video, just in time for the Flurry Festival next weekend. Happy Monday! This flourish is from a fellow dancer at Glen Echo (thanks!); this one you're going to want to practice with somebody ahead of time off the side. A few things to keep in mind:
You, too, can have your flourishes featured -- drop us a line!
Dancers are Steven Roth & Ryan Holman. Happy Friday, CS I've been looking through some of the photos from some techno contras and talking to people about some of their upcoming events and I've noticed the trend toward more elaborate costuming and attempted themes for techno contra events, whereas the aesthetic for most of the traditional contras I've been to have been very "come as you are" unless it's a Halloween party, where costumes are encouraged in honor of the holiday.
(For instance, for the upcoming techno contra at the Flurry Festival with Firecloud, I'm hearing folks talk about sewing LED wire onto their intended outfits and the like. At a private techno contra party I attended a year or two ago, the guest of honor wore a white tutu with some kind of lights sewn into his hem.) Why is this, do you think? Something about techno contras usually being more rare events than the weekly/monthly series out there, or is something else at work? This flourish is adapted from a flourish in on of Frank Hsieh's Scout House (MA) videos. It's a blind twirl into a swing which can be really neat once you've got the muscle memory. A few caveats, however: 1) make sure you have enough room; since there's a blind twirl for both of you, you need to be extra sure you have enough room (we are not aiming for giving folks black eyes -- it's so not worth it); 2) make sure your follow does not have arm/shoulder issues; this one is likely better done with a partner you know well; and 3) with all that said, it's still a fun flourish in the right conditions. You, too, can have your flourishes featured -- drop us a line!
Dancers are Steven Roth & Ryan Holman. Happy Friday, CS Reader Craig Green sent me this video last week and it made me smile -- speaking of things getting "thrown in" to contra, here's a fun video of some Perpetual e-Motion fans juggling to the band's rendition of "Sandy Boys"...the jugglers are Craig Green, Cleo Keller, Zach Schillinger, and Adrian Green. Interesting trend: other stuff getting tossed into contra dance...quite literally.
At the Firecloud debut at Glen Echo about a year ago, it was a couple of balloons that dancers batted about through the dance and collectively kept aloft; at Electric Blizzard in New Jersey last weekend, it was apparently a stuffed whale (?!) that got tossed around. Assuming that these things don't make for a safety hazard (which in the instances I've seen it doesn't -- balloons will break before they trip someone, for instance, and the dancers I've seen are good about batting them up or off to the side of the dance floor where they're out of the way), what do y'all think of these? Seems like adding white balloons might be a silly-fun, occasional add-on to a black-lit techno contra, but only if most/all of the dancers were game and the called dance was fairly simple (and it was, in fact, occasional...much like improv lines or strong spices, a little goes a long way, in my opinion).... Agree? Disagree? I welcome your thoughts! This week's flourish is a neat one we spotted in a recent Scout House video. It's a neat way to get into a swing. A couple of quick caveats: 1) the "stir the pot" part is a slightly tricky lead because it's a push on the follow's hands to get her around, but it is NOT a crank; and 2) if you come out of this one and your hands are mixed up, it is totally and utterly fixable -- just adjust the last turn-under so that the hands are follow's-left-in-lead's-right by the end. You, too, can have your flourishes featured! Drop us a line!
Carry on Dancing, CS So as some folks have noticed, Steve and I get a fair lot of our flourishes from various contra videos (especially since Steve is fond of poking around at contra videos online for inspiration and to pick out some of his friends). We can't be the only ones out there who go vicariously live amazing contra events through online videos (right?).
What do you look for in contra dance videos when you go looking around online? What are some of your favorites (links encouraged)! What do your favorites have in common? |
This project has concluded as of mid-2013 (with an epilogue posted mid-2016) but we hope to see you soon on a contra dance floor! Meanwhile, head over to our Facebook page for upcoming techno contra events and other items of interest.
The 100+ Friday Flourish videos can still be found on YouTube. AuthorI dance with abandon. I play with glowsticks. I look for music that is conducive to one or both. I play behind cameras. I write about all of the above. I'm based in Glen Echo's contra dance community outside of Washington, D.C., but I'm happy to go dance afield when I can. Lather, rinse, repeat. Always repeat. Archives
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