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5 Things You Missed at ContraEvolution II

10/17/2012

 
Last Sunday was ContraEvolution II in Greenfield, MA. Steve and I were there.

In no particular order:
 
1. Firecloud has expanded! ContraEvolution II marked the debut of Firecloud as a trio, with new member Andrew "DJ Nanocannon" Hlynsky (their band debut was January 1, 2012 at Glen Echo; I've chronicled my initial impressions elsewhere in this blog). The combo of two live musicians and the DJ made the sound seem a lot fuller and this appearance seemed more like an integration of the personalities involved than before. (Also notable: Julie playing techno jawharp, and Andy Reiner singing for parts of the set!)
 
2. dJ improper making a contra mix including the viral Korean hit "Gangnam Style." Let it not be said that he doesn't have his finger on the pulse of the current moment. (Alas, I didn't see anybody managing to incorporate the "horse dance" that goes with the song into a flourish.)
 
3. Face painting and body art with neon paint from local artist Eve Christoph.  The paints (and smudges) on dancers' bodies reacted with the blacklight and other lighting effects as the evening wore on.
 
4. Ed Howe's wandering between the lines with his fiddle during Perpetual e-Motion's set. On one of Ed's trips down into the masses (it might have been during the waltz, I honestly don't remember), Julie Vallimont took Ed's vacant chair next to John Coté and pantomimed fiddle playing along with the music for a little while.
 
5. Giant Robot Dance playing Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" in their set while Lisa Greenleaf was calling. (This was particularly amusing to me because Lisa led a series of contra dances a few years ago to recorded pop songs, and among the notable artists she included in the recorded selection was Lady Gaga.) 
 
To others who went: what were your favorite moments?

10 Things I've Learned About Alternative Contras

4/3/2012

 
Picture
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! 

A Quick Sidebar to Wednesday's Post...

9/30/2011

 
While digging around for information on my question on Wednesday about the acceptability of 20th century music in singing squares (and why any music that sounds like it was composed before 1970 has carte blanche and anything after 1970 doesn't without some sort of allusion in the event's marketing), I also ran across this page compiled by Clark Baker, who teamed up with Lisa Greenleaf a few years ago to organize the weekend-long Alternative Music Party in 2008 that Chrissy Fowler alluded to when I interviewed her back in June -- while a fair amount of the info on the page is from about ten years ago (although it claims a last-updated date of July 2010 as of this writing), perhaps it lends some thoughts on square dancing and contra dancing circles not being so different after all....
    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.

    Author

    I 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.

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