Right before your friendly neighborhood crossover contra blogger left for vacation, she caught up with Ann Fallon, who called the Contra Sonic dance in Arlington, VA on June 22, to talk about what it was like for Ann to call her first techno contra. Unlike some people, Ann had attended a couple of Contra Sonic events before she called, one before and one after the move to Artisphere in the Rosslyn neighborhood of Arlington, VA. She had watched a few format changes over the course of the series as well: “The first Contra Sonic I attended had several very long medleys, and I understand that some of the ones after that one had long medleys as well, one being an hour long. The format at DC Contra Sonic has evolved to regular length dances, with the emphasis being on keeping to simpler dances with low piece counts so the dancers can just dance to the music.”
The experience of calling traditional contra and techno contra did not differ as much as she thought it would. “I was concerned about possibly losing my place in the music. I’m not very familiar with the tunes used for crossover contras,” she says. “Although I knew that Jeremiah [Seligman, a.k.a. dJ improper] made the tunes be dance length, 64 beats, etc., and of course I know how to count beats, some of the music I had heard at the dances I attended seemed to have unclear phrasing. I knew there would be an 8 count intro rather than the usual 4 … and I was prepared to count throughout each dance. But it was easier than I thought to keep track of the parts of the dance, and …. and this was awesome … the dancers were so attuned to the music and for the most part were very experienced, they had absolutely no trouble hearing the phrasing and keeping the dance where it belonged. So I began each dance counting rather than ‘feeling’ the phrasing as I would normally do … but I didn’t count for very long … maybe twice through the dance.”
The experience of calling traditional contra and techno contra did not differ as much as she thought it would. “I was concerned about possibly losing my place in the music. I’m not very familiar with the tunes used for crossover contras,” she says. “Although I knew that Jeremiah [Seligman, a.k.a. dJ improper] made the tunes be dance length, 64 beats, etc., and of course I know how to count beats, some of the music I had heard at the dances I attended seemed to have unclear phrasing. I knew there would be an 8 count intro rather than the usual 4 … and I was prepared to count throughout each dance. But it was easier than I thought to keep track of the parts of the dance, and …. and this was awesome … the dancers were so attuned to the music and for the most part were very experienced, they had absolutely no trouble hearing the phrasing and keeping the dance where it belonged. So I began each dance counting rather than ‘feeling’ the phrasing as I would normally do … but I didn’t count for very long … maybe twice through the dance.”
