Lexington, KY 2024-03-02

Bob Isaacs notes: Tony Parkes of Massachusetts has long been one of America’s best callers of contras and squares, and this glossary dance is a fine way to start an evening.

http://dancevideos.childgrove.org/contra/contra-modern/437-butter-by-gene-hubert-becket

http://chrispagecontra.awardspace.us/dances/index.htm#accretion-reel

[1] What ring? The circle at the end of B2. The first time through the dance, skip this part, and begin straight with the individual scatter promenade. (John Sweeney came up with a cool alternate beginning, with everyone in one big circle, before breaking it up into individual pieces. If so, you definitely also want the big circle for the final time through.)
David Millstone writes about a nice modification of this for ONS groups: "Chris's dance calls for folks to balance in and out, and even though I demonstrated that to a group, their inclination was to go into the center in four counts with a whoop! and their arms rising up. Who am I to fight the natural tendency of the dancers? I suspect that this feels more satisfying, and it still gives them 12 beats to say goodbye to their circle and to walk alone to find a new partner."
[2] When I'm calling for ONS (one-night-stand) groups, I'll use "say goodbye" here. Then when they gyre later on, it's "say hello, and go around them, looking at them."
[3] Those allergic to gyres may wish to substitute a do-si-do, or skip it altogether and go straight to the swing. For an ONS group, substitute the swing with a two-allemande, elbow swing, or "whatever you think a swing should be."
[4] For more advanced groups, the gypsy can be with more than one other person. And the swing can be a basket swing.
[5] Last time through the dance, I like to have everyone promenade in one giant circle. Ditto for the final circles.
[6] Here each couple needs to find a few other couples to circle with. Lone couples could always two-allemande each other. James Hutson came up with a nice term for these variable-sized circles -- blobs.

The dance I consider my best. Usable both for non-dancing crowds, and with regular contra groups.

I wrote it after attending a contra dance with a number of beginners that kept breaking down over and over and over. On the way back, I thought what would have worked (a dance that intentionally broke down each time), and came up with a dance that I kept refining and simplifying down to this. It was partly also inspired by Ted Sannella's "Ted's Solo Mixer" and the scatter mixer "Set a' Crochet."

The dance's name came from ideas of planetary system formation, where larger and larger chunks of matter spiral inwards from gravity, accreting to form planetisemals, and then planets. The analogy goes bad where everybody separates every thirty seconds, but you could just consider that a periodic supernova event.

After having danced this, the A1/A2 feels sort of like the rush of looking for a partner, though here the commitment's only for 20 seconds. Kind of reminiscent of the cabeceo of tango.

Videos: (#1) (#2)

In the grand right and left dancers end up traveling half way around the circle.

Replaced the diagonal right and left through with a promenade and loop, then moved the neighbors swing to the ones you chained with and switched from a meltdown to a balance.

Written at Summer CDH 2018 for the band In Tent City. I suggest identifying the ones at the beginning of the dance so that there's no confusion when telling the ones only to do the roll to swap.

I was taking a course on gender and sexuality at the time I wrote this. The title is a double pun; "Contra is essential" is one meaning, "against cultural/biological essentialism" is another.

Inspired by Lisa Greenleaf's classic dance Poetry in Motion. I wanted something which captured that same star -> star -> allemande feeling while also incorporating Petronella spins. Not quite as beginner friendly as I had initially hoped due to the frequent redirections in the B section. Keep for more experienced crowds or later in the evening when you need something with simple figures but an interesting flow.

One of my favorite dances from Gene. A rare example of a Becket dance with lines of four down and up the hall, and a clever little progression via the right diagonal chain. It's a fantastic dance to inject variety into an event with a mixed crowd, since there's enough unexpected to scintillate experienced folks without overwhelming beginners.

† counter-clockwise, ladles forward, gentlespoons backward
‡ clockwise, gentlespoons forward, ladles backward

Source

http://www.dance.ravitz.us/#ww6

partner DSD and swing in B2 also works quite well

Progresses indecent

Cary notes:

"In place of the mad ladle, you can use gents roll away and ladies half sashay (3), ladies step forward and right to start a 1/2 mad ladle (3)."

http://www.dance.ravitz.us/#pp3

Note the similarity to Maliza's Magical Mystery Motion. The chain is to the diagonal left here, so at the end of B1 you must face a new set of four to find your partner.

YouTube, 2, 3