Hi, this is where I guess I might put up some contra dances when I write them.
I only started calling/writing in 2017, and I only call at Google Contra (where we have about 12-30 dancers), and usually only half the night, but I'm trying to expand, and my goal is to call an entire dance on the Jonathan Coulton cruise in 2019, and then we'll see how I feel when I'm comfortable calling a whole set.
We use larks and ravens as roles at the Google contra, so that's the notation I use for my dances.
If you call any of these please give me credit, and I'd love to hear how they went; you can contact me by putting my first name and a dot and my last name and an at symbol and gmail.com.
Still vaguely a work in progress, this is the third revision (12/17, 3/18, 7/18). For when you want to make a room full of adults spontaneously form a choo choo train.
Becket cw
A1
(8) Slide left, ravens chain
(8) Larks cross right hand over left for Long lines forward and back
A2
(8) Make a train*, take it to the right
(8) Turn it around, take it back to the left
B1
(8) Ravens chain
(8) Ravens gypsy 1x
B2
(16) Partners balance and swing
* A train, in this case, is a big oval where everybody has their hands on the shoulder of the person in front of them instead of just holding hands with the people on either side.
My dance partner and I often trade funny ideas for names for contra dances, and he sent me this one, and I'm really into trains, so I wrote it a few days later, with the idea that it would have two chains and a choo choo in it. I've called it twice and he's called it once (he added the larks crossing right hands part, which means you form more of a one-handed train with your left hand on the person's shoulder in front of you and your right hand on your own shoulder, holding the right hand of the person behind you. You have the raven's left hand in your left hand from the chain anyway).
The very first time I called this one it was really fun and super spontaneous and goofy, but I feel like it hasn't had that fun since. If anyone else wants to try it and let me know how it goes I'd be interested to hear about it.
A glossary first dance type thing.
Duple Improper
A1
(16) Neighbors balance and swing
A2
(8) Circle left 3 places
(8) Partners do-si-do
B1
(16) Partners balance and swing
B2
(8) Circle left 3 places
(4) Balance the ring
(4) Pass through to new neighbors
This dance started as a joke when one of our callers was like "Why can't I find a first dance that doesn't involve someone allemanding or gypsying or whatever in the middle?" so I filled this in on the spreadsheet, and the name sort of stuck as a running gag. It has since been called several times as the first dance, including as a 5-pair Sicilian Circle, and once, jokingly, as the last dance.
I really just wanted something with a clever TMBG-related name, so I made a
dance with a lot of starry things. I'm actually pretty happy with the beginning
of it because, dang, star throughs are silly and I wondered how to use one in a
fun way.
Duple Improper
A1
A2
B1
B2
Note: the beginning moves should be: neighbors balance using both hands if
possible; that way they will have the larks right and ravens left hands together
to do the star through; when you do that, everybody is ready to form a ring with
the proper hands.
In B1, when explaining the chain out of the hands across star, I tell larks to
take a step back from the star in order to get ready to receive the ravens chain
(otherwise they might be too close to the middle). My usual call is "larks fall
back, ravens chain".
Depending on the level of the crowd I will call the final star left as "normal
star left" or "star left with wrists", but usually it's just "star left".
A dance to evoke a combination of May pole and "outdoor dancing starts today". I
couldn't find a dance called "First of May" so I wrote it for the May 1st 2018
Google contra dance.
Duple Improper
A1
A2
B1
B2
It helps to tell people not to clap after the second petronella and to use their
momentum to spin into the star left, a la Petronella Stomp or Kitchen Stomp.
I call the second half of A2 by saying "Larks loop, ravens allemande once and a
half". Also, it is important to note, that part is 8 counts long, so the larks
should take a long circular walk, similar to the ends of a hey, coming back in
to meet their partner when they finish the inner allemande. However, the worst
case is that they stand around looking silly for a few counts waiting for their
partner instead, so it's not that big a deal. Usually I step in to demonstrate
what I mean during the walkthrough.
For some examples of this see John
Coffman's contra site; he has youtube links posted from dances like Captain
Kirk's Halibut. I don't know where star loops originally come from, but that's
where I found them.
Duple Improper
A1
A2
B1
B2
Turn from the star left to progress to new neighbors for the star right.
I wrote this because what I wanted to call was Bob Isaacs's "You're Among Friends", but didn't know
what it was called at the time, so just made something else up with the same
star left - right progression. It turned out to be useful as an early-ish dance
in the evening to introduce stars and heys at the same time.
A day-glo pterodactyl, or one badass f'ing fractal, take your pick.
Becket cw
A1
A2
B1
B2
The idea is that the movement represents the Mandelbrot Set fractal (small
circles into big circles into small circles into smaller circles, ie,
swings). Inspired by the Jonathan Coulton song of the same title.
For teaching, if you do this early in the night with beginners, for the
transition from the big oval circle left to the group of 4 circle left, tell the
larks to keep their neighbor's hand and look for their partner across the set,
dropping left hands with whoever else they're holding onto and taking their
partner's hand, leading into that smaller circle.
It's actually not a bad dance for an early one in the evening because the
formations aren't too hard, and it ends in a super long partner swing, so if
people get lost, just tell them to find their partner on the side and swing.
I've also been calling the B1 with a ravens allemande 1.5 after the oval left.
Written to be the first dance of the night for a smaller crowd (such as the
20-30 people we get at Google Contra).
Circle Mixer
A1
A2
B1
B2
In B2, your "new partner" is the person who just got rolled to you, if you are a
lark, or the person you just got rolled to, if you are a raven. I guess you could
change that if you wanted to, really.
This is basically taken from a move in salsa rueda where everyone is in a circle
and leads keep rolling follows across them until the caller tells them to keep
the person they just got.
I couldn't find a reasonably simple petronella scatter mixer so I wrote one.
Scatter Mixer
A1
A2
B1
B2
I think in theory you could do this with more than 2 pairs per group if they can
do a non-square petronella, and then it's just "corners balance and swing"
instead.
Don't Let's Star
(4) Neighbors balance
(4) Neighbors star through
(4) Ring balance
(4) Petronella
(16) Partners balance and swing
(8) Long lines forward and back
(8) Hands across right hand star
(8) Ravens chain
(8) Star left
First of May
(8) Ring balance, petronella
(8) Ring balance, petronella
(8) Hands across star left
(8) Ravens keep hands to allemande left 1.5 while the larks push off and loop over their own right shoulder
(16) Partners gypsy meltdown (ie, whatever y'all call a gypsy into a swing)
(8) Circle left 3 places
(4) Balance the ring
(4) California twirl to new neighbors
Hey Now, You're a Rock Star
(8) Star right
(8) Neighbors allemande right 1.25
(8) Ravens pass left for half a hey
(8) Neighbors swing
(4) Larks pull by right
(12) Partners swing
(8) Ravens chain
(8) Star left
Mandelbrot Set
(8) Slide left, circle left 3 places
(8) Neighbors swing
(8) Long lines forward and back
(8) Big oval circle right
(8) Big oval circle left
(8) Circle left 3 places
(16) Partners swing
Pasala Con Los Manos
(8) Circle Left
(8) Forward and back
(8) Circle Right
(8) Forward and back
(4) Balance circle
(4) Larks rollaway raven from their right to their left
(4) Balance circle
(4) Larks rollaway raven from their right to their left
(16) New Partner Balance and Swing
Petronella Milkshake
(8) Circle left 1
(8) Circle right 1
(4) Balance the ring
(4) Petronella
(4) Balance the ring
(4) Petronella
(16) Neighbors balance and swing
(16) Scatter promenade, find new people