epiphany

Swing Your Partner Doe-See-Doe

I've been getting a good amount of exercise the last couple of days. I started running again, and after my runs, short though they be for the moment, I do the full stretching routine from my Chinese kickboxing lessons. Additionally, my bus arrives downtown about forty minutes before work starts. Since the weather's been nice, instead of waiting around for the transfer bus, I've been hiking and meandering up the hill to my office. For those of you nay-sayers who think that the words "downtown" and "hiking" shouldn't appear within the same context, let me point out that at Madison Street in Seattle proper, every block heading east increases your elevation by four or five stories, and that goes on for a good six blocks or more. You will be puffing if you move quickly.

But last night was the best workout of all. Ever since last summer's Folklife Festival, I've become enamoured with folk dancing. I've hardly done any, but it fascinates me. As I pointed out yesterday morning, I discovered a website connecting people to various folk dance organizations in the Seattle area. Last night I made good on that site with my first (and probably not last) visit to the Emerald City Contradance, an organization meeting every Friday night about ten minutes from my current residence.

I've never square danced, but I'm guessing that the square and contra dances are brothers, sharing well-known terminology like "swing your partner" (spin in a circle), "promenade" (walk the lady across the line) and "doe-see-doe" (easy to do but hard to explain). We newbies (maybe ten or so) showed up for lessons at 7:00. The dances proper started at 7:30, and I would guess that more than a hundred people were out swirling across the floor by 8:00. Dancers ranging from teenagers through senior citizens filled the room with laughter, clapping (which I was told is a Seattle thing) and sweat. We took a ten or fifteen minute break at 8:30 but danced until 10:00. During the first half, the caller walked us through the new patterns before the dance started. But after the break, she said she considered us all "experienced" now, and she started calling new moves mid-dance: "Listen, listen, four-hand star."

I'd read that community dances, particularly these pattern-based folk dances, were a commentary on society and reflected the structures of community life. You choose a "partner" with whom you stay throughout a dance. In the course of the dance, you interact with "neighbors," the ladies and men partnered around you. In a big weaving network, you eventually interact with every other set of partners and every individual in your line, whether that's five or fifty. But you always remain with and return to your own partner.

My own "social" observations include the necessity of interacting. If you sat along the side and just listened to the band (an old-style folksy, Celtic-y group last night), you would never figure out what was going on or how the dances work. The only way to learn is through participation. Some of the moves and dances definitely tell a story. The ladies seem to do a lot more "socializing" than the men. One dance had a move called the "gypsy stare." You've been dancing with your neighbor of the opposite gender, and for the gypsy stare, the two ladies from the group of four walk into the middle and circle each other, staring directly into each other's eyes. When they show some attitude, it's hilarious and conveys the message of "keep away from my man!" Interestingly, although the ladies from two pairs interacted quite often, the men rarely did and never with as much familiarity as the women.

Anyway, it was a grand evening of fun, well worth the price of admission. I'm going to try to talk some other friends into going with me next time. And I have a feeling there'll be plenty of next times.