All the Way Around

At the start of the trip, I prepared a mix for each state we would visit. In New Jersey, we listened to Tom Waits’ “Jersey Girl”; as we approached the nation’s capital, the Magnetic Fields’ “Washington D.C.” was playing. It was “Tennessee Jed” that we listened to as we crossed the Tennessee state line. With the bright Tennessee sun shining and the cool Tennessee wind blowing through my open window, the music made the moment perfect. I truly felt: “Ain’t no place I’d rather be.”

We entered Knoxville well before the dance began, singing, “If you’ll be my Dixie chicken, I’ll be your Tennessee lamb, and we can walk together down in Dixie land.” Roaming the city looking for a place to eat, we found ourselves in the ritzy part of Knoxville with fancy restaurants offering valet parking and $12 salads. We finally stepped onto a pedestrians-only street and Dave excitedly cried, “This is it! This is what we want.” Unfortunately, we discovered that downtown Knoxville closed down early on Monday nights. The only place we found offering food was a pub, so we took a table on their patio in disbelief that we were eating dinner outdoors in Mid-March.

We got to The Laurel Theatre, the home of the weekly Monday night Knoxville dance, just as the first contra was starting. Dave pulled me by the hand, then stopped, “Which side is the top of the set?” he had to ask a woman sitting out. The small hall was shaped in such a way that made lines form parallel to its high stage. “Top is next to the Stained Glass,” she told us, and then asked, “Is this your first time dancing?”. We told her we had danced before, and she replied, “Alright, just watch out for one tricky move: men enter late into the right-hand-star.”

We waited at the end of the set and, after a measure of music, the bottom couple welcomed us with a swing. One of my neighbors asked me, later in the dance, “You from Asheville?”. When I shook my head he explained, “Whenever we get new people that are good dancers, we assume they’re from Asheville.” I looked around—the dancers I saw here were good too, each with a unique style. I don’t think I was courtesy turned the same way twice that night.

My next partner was very curious about the trip. “You know,” he said, “all my friends make fun of me for traveling so far to go to dances. I usually go to Nashville, Chattanooga, Asheville, or Birmingham on the weekends. They say, ‘what are you, a gypsy?’ ‘yep,’ I reply. ‘I just can’t get enough of this type of dancing!’”.

About halfway through the dance I realized there was a balcony above the dance floor and decided to sit out to take pictures from up there. As I looked down, a woman took the mic from the caller and said, “Y’all know Dave and Lisa? They’re with us from New England on their way across the country visiting dances.” She pointed to Dave on the floor, and I had to wave frantically from the balcony when she said, “Now where’s Lisa?”. It was great watching the dancers, band, and caller from up above.

The band, New Lost Weasel Concern, was pretty big, which might have been a function of Tennessee’s large population of musicians. Some of the instruments played that night were hammered dulcimer, guitar, banjo, stand up bass, flute, and fiddle. The local caller, Tim Klein, stomped his feet as he called out the figures. He liked to staccato his ladies chains: “ladies ch-ch-ch-ch-chain,” making them sound like the David Bowie song. He called a lot of fun dances with uncommon figures like “the chase” and handy-hand allemande—I was impressed with his selections.

Knoxville had a small, older crowd of dancers. Only a couple times during the night were two lines needed, but it wasn’t hard to get partners. Everyone wanted to get a dance in with the travelers from New England.

During the break we met and chatted with our hostess for the night and afterwards, Dave asked her to dance. He told me she had a very flowy, modern dance style to her contra dancing and that she did an impressive floor slap during one balance. We later learned that she had been interviewed and pictured for an article about dancing in “Health”, a national magazine.

http://www.health.com/health/package/0,23653,1224041,00.html

I was thrilled when a woman’s gypsy was called during the last dance; it’s one of my favorite contra figures. Usually, only a few girls will look deep into your eyes or put their forehead to yours during a gypsy, but many won’t feel comfortable enough to do that. In Knoxville, every single woman in the line did a true gypsy with me.

After the dance, our hostess took us to a bar in “the old city” with her friend and the dance scheduler. We chatted over beers about music and life on the road.

-Memphis, TN

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 13th, 2007 at 12:34 am and is filed under 09 Tennessee. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.