Went contra dancing last night
We've been trying to get to a contra dance since before we were married.
On our honeymoon, at Louisbourg, we found our way to the dance just as it was ending. When other opportunities have presented themselves, something has always come up, like having to leave whatever even to go to the store, chase a toddler etc. Even when the dances are held at events at #4, there is always something that comes up, like eating dinner through the first half of the program.
Last night, we managed to go to the contra dance that is held every third Saturday of the month at the function hall owned by the UU church in Walpole, NH. Walpole is just down the road, it's where I get animal feed.
A little side note: my ancestors who settled this valley in the 18th century were farmers in Walpole, Westmoreland and Chesterfield, the three towns immediately to the south of here. There is a very real possbility that they went to dances in Walpole too, only two and a half centuries earlier. They would have gotten there either on foot, in a sleigh, or in a wagon, probably not in a 1991 Buick with 300,000+ miles on it. If they'd had one, they would have.
Side note #2: When i stopped at the convinience store in Walpole for bottles of water, they were selling T-shirts that said "Walpole, NH - What happens here stays here, but nothing ever really happens here". Funniest shirt I've seen in a long time!
Anyway, back to the dance: There was a live band, with fiddles, guitar, base, an electric guitar and a clarinet. An odd mix for folk music, but whatever works! Like most contra dances, there is a beginner's workshop beforehand. Wendy had never really done it before, caleigh certainly hadn't, and I had never done "modern" contra dancing. Over the course of the night, people kept streaming in. I tried to count couples in the lines and folks sitting out the dance in the chairs along the wall and my estimate is that there were around 100 people crammed into that room.
Modern contra dancing is different from historic contra dancing, but you can see it's roots. Years aog when I headed up a milita group back in the Merrimack Valley, we had weekly contra dance lessons and a dance party at the end of the season. Those lessons were all based on dances knows to have been used in the 18th century. It was fun, and I'd like to do it again. We're thinking of talking to the folks that run the school where Caleigh takes gymnastics lessons to see if the would be interested in such a project.
Wendy was sick, she's been fighting a bronchial infection since our trip to the wedding in Maine back in September. Bronchial infection means you can't breathe deep, which means you get winded quickly. That means one dance, then sit out the next few to catch your breath. With contra dancing, that makes it hard to keep up as each dance has a little more complicated moves that the one before it, and if you miss a couple of dances, you are a bit behind everyone else.
Sooner or later we will beat the bronchitis, and finally, after all of these years, we will get to dance all night!
On our honeymoon, at Louisbourg, we found our way to the dance just as it was ending. When other opportunities have presented themselves, something has always come up, like having to leave whatever even to go to the store, chase a toddler etc. Even when the dances are held at events at #4, there is always something that comes up, like eating dinner through the first half of the program.
Last night, we managed to go to the contra dance that is held every third Saturday of the month at the function hall owned by the UU church in Walpole, NH. Walpole is just down the road, it's where I get animal feed.
A little side note: my ancestors who settled this valley in the 18th century were farmers in Walpole, Westmoreland and Chesterfield, the three towns immediately to the south of here. There is a very real possbility that they went to dances in Walpole too, only two and a half centuries earlier. They would have gotten there either on foot, in a sleigh, or in a wagon, probably not in a 1991 Buick with 300,000+ miles on it. If they'd had one, they would have.
Side note #2: When i stopped at the convinience store in Walpole for bottles of water, they were selling T-shirts that said "Walpole, NH - What happens here stays here, but nothing ever really happens here". Funniest shirt I've seen in a long time!
Anyway, back to the dance: There was a live band, with fiddles, guitar, base, an electric guitar and a clarinet. An odd mix for folk music, but whatever works! Like most contra dances, there is a beginner's workshop beforehand. Wendy had never really done it before, caleigh certainly hadn't, and I had never done "modern" contra dancing. Over the course of the night, people kept streaming in. I tried to count couples in the lines and folks sitting out the dance in the chairs along the wall and my estimate is that there were around 100 people crammed into that room.
Modern contra dancing is different from historic contra dancing, but you can see it's roots. Years aog when I headed up a milita group back in the Merrimack Valley, we had weekly contra dance lessons and a dance party at the end of the season. Those lessons were all based on dances knows to have been used in the 18th century. It was fun, and I'd like to do it again. We're thinking of talking to the folks that run the school where Caleigh takes gymnastics lessons to see if the would be interested in such a project.
Wendy was sick, she's been fighting a bronchial infection since our trip to the wedding in Maine back in September. Bronchial infection means you can't breathe deep, which means you get winded quickly. That means one dance, then sit out the next few to catch your breath. With contra dancing, that makes it hard to keep up as each dance has a little more complicated moves that the one before it, and if you miss a couple of dances, you are a bit behind everyone else.
Sooner or later we will beat the bronchitis, and finally, after all of these years, we will get to dance all night!
posted by MVTCoPete | 1:45 PM
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