Durham 12/12/25

Tested at the Christmas Country Dance School, Berea KY, 2018.

Momentum of the circle halfway lends itself to balancing the wave forward and back

The gentlespoons allemande is leisurely

Composed Sept 4, 1997

Demo the Rip and Snort. 1's need to mind their shoulders when they turn under their joined hand.

Couple waiting out needs to put gentlespoon on Right. One's progress up; twos progress down (hence the name).
Written 2005

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.

Rick Mohr notes: This is a very fun dance, especially with fast reels.

It helps to alert the gentlespoons to pull by at the end of the phrase in A1. Otherwise some will delay until the beginning of A2, making them late for the balance in B1. This can be reinforced during the dance by calling "gentlespoons right hand pull by" early by a beat or two.

The "Zig-Zag" in B2 is most satisfying if dancers emphasize the sideways left/right motion rather than the forward motion which gets them past their neighbors. There's plenty of time, so encourage them to go a good distance out of the set in the Zig. The idea is to let the momentum from the circle left propel into the Zig left, and then let the momentum from the Zag right lead directly into the circle right with the next couple.

For Robin Kynoch, a fine tinwhistle player from Framingham, Massachusetts. You might not think it possible to "rock" on the whistle, but Robin does.

Originally posted to: http://rickmohr.net/contra/dances.asp#RockinRobin

IGNORE THE A1 COUNTS AS LISTED HERE: timing in the A is mushy and moves bleed across phrases. Both the mad ladle and the poussette take about 6 counts, so the mad ladle starts a little before A2, and the 5/8 hey finishes just about at the end of the A2. Encourage dancers to follow the movement rather than trying to fit it into the music (i.e. DON'T do the English dance thing of trying to make the moves fill the phrase), and use B1 to get everyone back together.

This dance allows for almost constant eye contact with partner. (If you do the hey facing your P, you do in fact get basically constant eye contact, but please don't teach this, or you'll have everyone doing it and ppl will all run into each other. The sufficiently experienced dancers will figure it out on their own!) Inspired by Will Mentor's "Lavender Snow", premiered at LCFD Spring Dance Camp 2018. The two-hand turn in B2 was a later addition, suggested by Shoshana Silverman (fall 2022).