Three happy things from this weekend's Harvest Ball, run by the gender-role-free contra dance gang up in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. Two funny, one serious.
Funny suggestion over dinner:
In a discussion that was shifting between the different varieties of 5/4 dance in various historical eras and the need for me to make demo DVDs and the fact that if I did I would use a female partner and call them "Two Girls Dance", the following helpful suggestion:
"Bill them as HOT 5/4 GIRL-GIRL ACTION!!"
That does sound a lot more exciting than "How to dance the Five-Step", doesn't it? Hmm.
Funny exchange:
Me: Are you my sassy gay friend, then?
Him: I could be!
Me: No, wait, I already have a sassy gay friend.
Him: I could be your sassy gay Jewish friend.
Me: I already have one of those, too...maybe you could be my best-dressed sassy gay Jewish friend?
After that, we had a waltz.
And one serious bit:
It's odd to have a time-travel moment at an event with such a modern atmosphere in general. Not in costume, not dancing Regency style...actually, I was dancing the leader's role with a guy in the follower's role, while wearing a vaguely Goth minidress and skirt and stripey black and white knee socks. Can't get much less historical! And yet...when we danced the most modern version of "Money Musk" (thirty-two bars of dance squeezed asymmetrically into a twenty-four bar version of the tune) I was so pleased to be able to fall into a triple minor progression (normal for me, unlike pretty much the entire rest of the dance world) and enjoy the feel of working my way slowly up the set, and then that moment with my partner when we were ready to start dancing down and we went into that right hand swing, active couple all the way down to the bottom of the set...it was glorious. Part of it was the tune, which is one of my favorites and very compelling to dance to, but part of it was the extra elasticity of the modern contra styling and the tightened timing overlaying the old-fashioned figures with their notable difference in activity between active couples and the others. I'm not expressing it very well, but I just really like that contrast and hurtling down the set with the extra dramatic zing of being in the position for a few seconds per repetition of performer to audience, active to receptive, with the different type of figures that permits, rather than the consistent equality of role of most modern contra choreography, which I often find rather dull.
I think this attachment to contrast occurs in other areas of my life as well. Food for thought.
Comments