Fieldwork Topic

I am hoping to do research on contra dance bands. Specifically, I hope to work with a friend of mine and the group he's a part of, the Sunday Night Jammers. I met Paul at a Brown Contra dance last year, but I don't remember hearing about the Jammers until the middle of last year. They are a group of all sorts of instrumentalists who get together and play dance tunes of all descriptions, Sunday nights at Goff Hall in Rehoboth, MA. They have three FREE community dances this fall: Sept 21, Oct 26, and Nov 23. By some stroke of divine luck, all of these work with my current schedule, so I will go to all of them. (Hope knocks on wood, and then makes a sacrifice to the Gods of Free Time.) Alternately, if that doesn't work out, I will try to work with another band.


I'm not sure exactly what I should be posting here, but I feel like I should say a little bit about what contra dance is and my background in it. (Warning: my definition of "what contra dance is" is based on personal experience, with no scholarly knowledge or research yet thrown in.)


Contra is a form of traditional American community dance. It's based on British community dance and was brought to this country by British settlers. Couples start standing two-by-two in long lines running down the hall, and a caller tells them a pattern of steps for traveling up and down the line. All of these patterns have names ("Petronella," "Chorus Jig," etc) and most were made up by a particular person. The band plays the music. One dance--one repeated pattern of steps--can last about 10-15 minutes, and then you find a partner for the next one. There is a first half, with 3-4 easy dances, followed by a waltz, and then a break to get water, talk to friends, announce when the next dance is going to be, etc. Then the second half contains slightly harder dances and again ends with a waltz. Then everyone goes home. (If you have any familiarity with square dancing, contra is a bit like that, except in a long line, not a square.)

I was introduced contra dancing in summer 2004. Apple Hill, which is the awesome place where I go to play chamber music, takes all the campers to the Monday-night contra dance in Nelson, NH. So from 2004 until college, I danced there once or twice a year. Then I came here and discovered that there are dances here at Brown and in Rehoboth. I go to the one here pretty regularly (which is to say, once or twice a month) and slightly less often to Rehoboth.

A Few Possible Research Questions:

• What association is there between a dance (the set of steps) and the music the band plays for it?
• How does a caller work with a band?
• What makes a good dance (referring to event as whole)?

I also think I could possibly do something about how one becomes and learns to be a caller, since my friend started that process last year.

And finally, just because I want to, and also in case you're curious, here are links to things I wrote about in this post:

Brown Contra dance

Sunday Night Jammers

Rehoboth Contra Dance

Chorus Jig at Nelson!