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RIP Contra Sonic: The FSGW Monthly Series

12/19/2012

 
The last installment of Washington, DC’s Contra Sonic series is on Thursday, December 20, with a “Dark Side of the Earth” theme. It started as a monthly series in November of 2010 and was the source of several of my caller interviews and the home techno contra of dJ improper.

Some folks will say that the series failed, because it’s needed to evolve into a more sporadic, event-based format to be profitable for those involved.

I disagree.
I understand that it didn’t make as much money as the organizers hoped, and that -- especially compared to the usual Glen Echo Friday night attendance of 200 to 350 dancers a week, it was a tiny dance (the installment in November that wasn’t right after the Friday night dance, I believe, had 20 or 30 people at it).

However, for me, that’s actually some of what made it special.

Glen Echo is in some ways a really atypical dance community -- our usual traditional weekly dances are gigantic. As organizer Penelope Weinberger said when I interviewed her about Contra Sonic, “Our dances are bigger than a lot of people’s big dances, and we get 50, 60, 70 people on a Tuesday night at a Contra Sonic and I’m wondering, ‘where is everybody?’ and that’s actually a pretty big dance....”

But the really neat thing about having that little dance, was that I got to dance with a lot of folks I wouldn’t otherwise get to, because they’re in one of the three other (long) lines in the Spanish Ballroom, or they were in my line but going the same direction I was and I never caught up. It meant that I got to dance with a lot more of the folks who aren’t necessarily in my age cohort, but still were willing to play...and this meant that I ended up dancing with them more in the regular dances over the last two years than I otherwise might have without seeking them out.

There is value to smaller dances, and I think it’s a value that a lot of people don’t get as much of when you’re used to really big ones. In the bigger dances, there’s more chance for fragmentation, even if the people involved are as welcoming as can be. The contra community is certainly more welcoming than most, but face it -- in a room of 200 people, while we might dance with everyone in the room once if you’re really making a point of changing lines and partners after every dance, it might only be for like 10 seconds per person over the course of the night.

The smallest contra I’ve ever been to was a techno in the middle of the Blue Ridge, and there were about 25 dancers there, tops. By the end of the night, I could tell you about how every last one of them swung their neighbors, which people were able or willing to dance switch, and which of them were from out of town from having talked to or overheard all of them chatting at some point during the evening. For some this might be considered boring, and perhaps if it was the norm it might be stifling; for me, it was refreshing in its own way.

Contra Sonic was like that for me, in the context of the bigger contra dances that bookend every weekend at Glen Echo. It was a change of pace, and a change of atmosphere, that regularly allowed me to experiment with the traditional dance and get some experiences that I brought back to the traditional contras. I do think it made me a better dancer, by making me dance with more people. I also think that it made me a more conscious dancer, because I was able to see contra pulled out of its traditional context and thrown into another one, regularly. (It also ended up being my first time calling -- which I built on when Steve and I co-taught our workshop at FootFall -- and an exercise in community, when the hired caller was extremely late one night and a handful of us rotated finding and calling dances, with help from memories and smartphones and tablets!)

It seems like Contra Sonic moving to a more episodic, event-based format will leave people wanting more and thus showing up in higher numbers to fewer dances, as they have in other locales with more sporadic techno contra events. That’s probably overall a positive thing from an organizer’s and stakeholder’s point of view, as people will clear their calendars and expand their experience of this traditional dance form in bigger crowds thanks to supply and demand for this type of event. But there was something really special about the monthly-series techno contra format that ran for two years, and I feel like I would be remiss as a DC-area contra blogger (and dancer) if I didn’t document that for posterity.
Lisa
12/22/2012 10:41:53 am

Basically... word to all of that.

Contra Sonic was the first event I attended at Glen Echo, and it was nice to have a baby step into the regular dances (30 people versus 300, meant I had 30 faces to kind of recognize at the regular dance).

I just have really magical memories of that night and what ridiculous amounts of fun I had. In one of the posts you linked, you said you had a sense of cohesion, and I remember feeling something very similar. Also: "Damn, why couldn't prom have been like this?"

I get that the program needs to be profitable. Personally, I'd be happy to pay more if that means a few more Contra Sonics. I'll be sad if it moves to a quarterly thing, but I'll definitely be there.

Ryan (blogger) link
12/23/2012 12:15:39 pm

You say:

"Also: 'Damn, why couldn't prom have been like this?'"

I reply:

Seriously. My high school years would have been WAY different if I'd found this scene earlier. :)

Perry
12/22/2012 02:01:13 pm

If it's small dances you're seeking, you should make a point of going to some of the other local dances in the area if you can. Baltimore, Annapolis, and Frederick are Saturday dances that are always in need of more people, and so is Baltimore's Wednesday dance. They are all great dances. If it's small TECHNOS you are seeking, I generally agree that this is a format that usually will do better if those events are fewer. The first events were very well attended because they were new - but attendance dropped off dramatically after that.

Ryan (blogger) link
12/23/2012 12:13:53 pm

It's not JUST the fact that it's a smaller dance, though. I've been to the Baltimore dance and the Frederick dance a couple of times (though not with any particular regularity). They were lovely, but somehow it wasn't the same thing I found with the Sonic series.

The other techno contras I was at have been HUGE (and more crowded than Swallowtail at Glen Echo).

And actually, even when the technos have been huge at Glen Echo, it's been a really different kind of energy. I feel like the small technos -- like a small, intimate club, but with contra instead of club dancing per see -- have something unique to offer, and I'm sad that they don't seem to be profitable/sustainable. Ah well, c'est la vie I guess.

I'll still keep coming to the other events as I can, of course -- but it'll be different. Not necessarily better or worse, but...different.

Penelope
12/25/2012 09:49:18 pm

I just want to say, as the organizer, that Sonic is not on hiatus because of finances, Sonic is on hiatus because of community energy required to sustain it. I have long been saying that Sonic needs a champion to take over the organizing of it, and profitable or no it can go forward. FSGW is not motivated by profit, we are a community organization, with a mission to bring folk arts. Sonic needs a venue, a scheduler, a champion. Find those and you can have Sonic.

Ryan (blogger) link
12/26/2012 02:45:04 am

Perhaps I should have been more specific...I was not using "profitable" purely in a financial sense. Clearly there was *something* lacking, or it wouldn't have stopped.

Even if it's just "fulfillment for the organizers that makes it worth the effort put into it" or "the organizers decided it was time to do something different with the time and energy that went into Sonic." And that could have to do with things that have absolutely nothing to do with the series. (There is life outside of contra, after all.)

Regardless: it is something that was there, and contributed to the community, and is no longer. And it will be missed.

Peter
12/27/2012 10:49:33 am

When I felt that way about one of our dances, I decided to start organizing it. :-)

Penelope
12/29/2012 05:56:36 am

Thank you Peter! That's what I'm saying. Cast as commodified or no, to posit dancing as something of which I am the provider and you are the consumer is BS. Honestly, I resent the notion that I should continue to "provide" something that is ostensibly community based when the community takes no responsibility for it. If you think the thing is valuable and you want it, take some responsibility for it. That's how community works.

Peter
12/29/2012 10:28:11 pm

Penelope,

I have seen it done where a community becomes active. In our case, we had a volunteer coordinator for a while who would make announcements to recruit people to help tear down after a dance. Since that started, the culture has changed from one that had been consumer-based to one where people lend a hand. Now, it's normal to have a group staying after the end of the dance to help wind up cords and put away lights.

Since we have been working with on-campus groups (including helping to get one started!), college organizers have been becoming active in the community, too. In fact, a group of college organizers participated in our annual meeting this month! Even though college students are usually twice as busy as working adults, it seems like there are quite a few who haven't decided yet who they're going to be, which could be why it can be easier to inspire them to take an active role in shaping their world. The challenge, of course, is that they graduate, so it's necessary to inspire new organizers every year.

To that end, we offer scholarships to student organizers at one college with the stipulation that at least two dances be organized on campus during the year. We also sponsor contra dance music instruction on-campus at another.

A few working adults have also been inspired, mostly through recruiting music talent from amongst contra dance participants. Hybrid events with those musicians opening for crossover seems to work pretty well. Some people enjoy dancing with their musicians and to music made by regular partners and neighbors. The musicians tend to like to stay and dance, too, even if it's to a different genre of music.

Peter
12/29/2012 10:28:41 pm

Penelope,

I have seen it done where a community becomes active. In our case, we had a volunteer coordinator for a while who would make announcements to recruit people to help tear down after a dance. Since that started, the culture has changed from one that had been consumer-based to one where people lend a hand. Now, it's normal to have a group staying after the end of the dance to help wind up cords and put away lights.

Since we have been working with on-campus groups (including helping to get one started!), college organizers have been becoming active in the community, too. In fact, a group of college organizers participated in our annual meeting this month! Even though college students are usually twice as busy as working adults, it seems like there are quite a few who haven't decided yet who they're going to be, which could be why it can be easier to inspire them to take an active role in shaping their world. The challenge, of course, is that they graduate, so it's necessary to inspire new organizers every year.

To that end, we offer scholarships to student organizers at one college with the stipulation that at least two dances be organized on campus during the year. We also sponsor contra dance music instruction on-campus at another.

A few working adults have also been inspired, mostly through recruiting music talent from amongst contra dance participants. Hybrid events with those musicians opening for crossover seems to work pretty well. Some people enjoy dancing with their musicians and to music made by regular partners and neighbors. The musicians tend to like to stay and dance, too, even if it's to a different genre of music.


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    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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