5 Things You Missed if You Weren't at Contra Evolution

On our way home from Footfall, Steve turns to me and says, "You know what would be really awesome? If dJ improper, Double Apex, and Perpetual e-Motion all got together and did a gig."

My reply, having been alerted to one such event by one of you wonderful readers, was, "Actually -- there is. It's just in Massachusetts. On a Wednesday."

With this in mind, in the final days before the event was to take place, we decided we'd make the trip (and apparently were weren't the only out-of-towners; in addition to other northern New Englanders, there was a delegation from Philadelphia that made it up). For those who weren't there, here are a handful of selected highlights:

1. Will Mentor declaring "No-Walkthrough Wednesday" and the triumphant cheer of the assembled dancers in response.
2. A progressively more complex light show involving more lighting effects with every artist that came on -- starting with green dot-lights and eventually including several swirling rainbow colors and black light beaming across a somewhat darkened hall.
3. Filling the Guiding Star Grange with enough dancers that all chairs, furniture, and personal possessions had to be removed from the main hall and moved downstairs -- where the sound was pumped in case of overflow, and it sounded like the ceiling would cave in with every balance.
4. Nils Fredland joining in with Double Apex -- techno trombone, anyone?
5. A really beautiful "narrative" arc which may or may not have been intentional and started with an hour of Perpetual e-Motion (100% live), an hour of Double Apex (partly live, partly prerecorded samples), an hour of dJ improper (100% prerecorded sound), and then two hours of various combinations of the above including a half-hour medley dance; and than ending with Brendan Carey Block and Ed Howe playing acoustic violin during the final waltz.