All the Way Around

Just before we left them in Arkansas, Donna and David told us about an annual Sunday afternoon dance in Austin’s Zilker Park. Their son was going to be there fiddling. Lisa and I couldn’t believe our luck that we’d be in Austin at exactly the right weekend.

In Dallas, it was incredibly warm, and we were shocked when our hostess stepped outside the morning we were to leave and said, “Brrr… It’s chilly today. Don’t worry, it’ll be warmer in Austin.” I dance in flip flops, wonderful dancing shoes that form fit to your feet and never overheat. With two days left before winter’s end, these became my all-purpose shoes.

The day we arrived was the last day of the Austin film and music festival, South-by-Southwest. The streets were packed with visitors from out of town, and our New Hampshire plate blended with the Oregons, the Michigans, and even one Connecticut. “You here for South-by-Southwest?” was a question Lisa and I fielded about 5 times each on the dance floor.

Lingering in Dallas longer than we had planned and getting lost on the way made us late to the four hour afternoon dance. When we got there, the caller had just finished a walkthrough and the band started up. The music was incredible! We approached the dance stage and began to pick out the band members. A woman was playing the electric bass; in the back, a guy was beating on a full drum set; another guy was jamming out on a guitar, accompanied by an electric keyboardist; this was a rock band. In the center of it all, the fiddler took lead. I found a partner and joined in.

The hall was an outdoor stage in the middle of Zilker Park, what I would call the Central Park of Austin. This is not to say that Austin is at all comparable to New York City. It’s actually closer to Batman’s Gotham City. A giant, futuristic, green and black building hovers dark and mysterious above the downtown, and the main bridge across Austin’s Town Lake is home to millions of bats. Recently, Austin named itself “The Bat City.”

The people on the floor were of mixed ages, and many modeled a brand of contra dance fashion I had never seen. Some wore cowboy hats, others had sunglasses, one woman even sported some dancing gloves. I was sweating in my t-shirt right from the start, even though a perfectly situated tree shaded the contra sets.

The dancers were mostly experienced, and Lisa and I both got to flaunt some moves we’d been keeping on the shelf for awhile. As I turned my partner under my arm, I got a look at my next neighbor and I couldn’t believe it: she danced with us in Asheville, NC, and we had seen her around Greenfield, MA. Seeing her was like a flashback to Warren Wilson; she was even wearing the same sparkling white skirt. We talked of traveling to different dances during the break, and danced one together afterwards.

The band switched after the break to an acoustic, old-timey band with a purely Texan look. Callers of mixed levels switched on and off throughout the event. At times, a caller would make a mistake, but the crowd was very flexible, and callers and dancers alike pulled off excellent recoveries. Dances included several I recognized, including a few by Peterborough, NH’s Steve Zakon-Anderson.

Lisa and I had arranged to meet some friends from the Northeast who were attending South-by-Southwest. They arrived in the middle of the second half, and Lisa pulled one of them onto the dance floor. I lined up next to them with a young woman, and when I asked her where she was from, she told me New Hampshire! She had moved to Austin a year earlier to teach. We had an entirely Northeastern contingent for a progression.

I wound up sitting out more than normal, as the heat was intense. Lisa commented that it was like being at a New England dance festival in the summer. Watching the dancers on stage from the sloping grass nearby gave me a feeling of unity with the nation’s contra dancers. We are everywhere, and send envoys to our distant neighbor communities. Lisa and I had danced all down the east coast and had made it almost halfway to the west. I looked forward to all we had yet to see and the people we had yet to meet on our trip all the way around.

The next night, Lisa and I learned the Texas two-step, and danced at the Continental Club in Southern Austin with our visiting friends. Local legend Dale Watson was playing with his Lone Stars. Throwing in contra moves where we saw fit, we two-stepped and polkaed as Dale said in a baritone croon, “A Monday night in Texas is like a Friday night in Nashville; it’s like a Saturday night in New York City.” Then he polished off two shots and a beer. I wanted to add, “almost like a Monday night in Nelson.”

-Austin, TX

This entry was posted on Monday, March 19th, 2007 at 11:58 am and is filed under 12 Texas. 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.