All the Way Around

The drive from Phoenix to San Diego took us through miles of desert under an unfriendly sun. With our windows closed to prevent sand from blowing into our lungs, the seven hour trip got us to San Diego feeling pretty cranky. But after relaxing a while at Dave’s cousin’s house, then heading down to the shore to dip our feet in the Pacific ocean, it was easy to forget about our scorching desert drive. It seemed that every section of the seaside cliffs was inhabited by a different animal species. Cormorants were crowded onto a shady outcropping, sea lions shared a cool rock inches above the water, and pelicans perched on a sunny ledge above a watery cave. We listened to the sea lions’ laughter-like bark and watched the pelicans dive for their dinner. Inland, the paths between beaches were home to many plants I had never seen before.

After a delicious, home cooked meal at Dave’s cousin’s, we drove to the Trinity Methodist Church where the San Diego contra dance was held. Dave and I chatted with the musicians as they were preparing for the dancers. “Are you a local band?” Dave asked the mandolin player. “Yep, there are actually four local bands and four local callers and we mix and match for each week’s dance,” he replied. The band that night was Hey Wire and they had a great sound. Their four instruments—guitar, fiddle, mandolin, and banjo—produced an old-timey sound full of twangy trills. As we talked with the band, Martha Wild, the caller for the night, finished enthusiastically teaching a beginner’s workshop. She took her place beside the band on the second step of a miniature staircase and I noticed the words on the T-shirt she wore: “She who must be obeyed.”

The first dance of the evening was proper and began with active couples going down the outside. As the actives walked down the hall alone, some inactive couples swung in the center, a move I was familiar with. But several couples began doing what looked like the hand-clapping games I played when I was young to songs like “Miss Mary Mack.” Once my partner and I got to the end of the line and became inactive, he turned to me and said, “let’s clap!” He clapped, held out his right hand, then his left, clapped both my hands at the same time, and then clapped his together. We did this a few times to the beat of the music and then stepped into a circle left. Our neighbors broke hands and twirled around before joining us in the circle right that followed. This was a signature move on the San Diego dance floor, I found.

After the next walk through, the caller turned to the band. “Give us four potatoes and away we’ll go!” This dance featured a same gender do-si-do, which the caller usually called as, “Dosey!”. Next, everyone balanced in a ring and did a “CIRcle three-quarters ’round.” This was another of Martha’s distinctive calls: she would pronounce “circle” with an accented and higher pitched first syllable. Then, either the men or the women (alternating between each progression) went down the center and back, cast off with their neighbor, passed through and swung. It was a fun dance, at its best when the dancers weren’t sure if it was the men or the women’s turn in the center. These first two dances were just the beginning of Martha’s great selections.

A lot of the dancers that night looked like I had seen them before, though I wasn’t sure why. I asked one of these familiar faces to be my partner, and we joined the only set. It was during a partner swing that I realized where I recognized him from. We had danced together somewhere in New England, most likely during the Fall Ball in Peterborough, NH. Dave and I found many folks that had once danced in the Northeast that night. One of Dave’s partners thought she recognized him from Santa Barbara, but realized after finding out he was from New England, that they had danced together in Dover, NH. We met other Fall Ball attendees, as well as someone who had danced in the Boston area. Their stories went one of two ways: either they had moved from New England and searched for contra dancing once they got to California, or were Californians that enjoyed dancing in the Northeast and traveled there for special dance events.

The last tune during my dance with the partner I recognized was Sandy Boys, one of my favorites. As the band switched I could feel the energy of the room lift and heard many of my neighbors vocalizing their excitement. After that day’s drive I had been unsure I would make it through a night of dancing, but that moment gave me all the energy I needed to dance vigorously through it’s entirety.

At the break, Dave and I shared the floor with three other couples during a polka. As was usual in this part of the country, we were the only couple doing the Norwegian Polka while others danced the Polish style. Afterwards, I was asked by one of my neighbors what dance Dave and I had just done. I told him what it was and he smiled and said that he had never seen it before. We got many comments that night on our dancing style. The San Diego dance community was a warm and welcoming one.

Spinning me around during the last waltz, Dave suddenly stopped. “Oh man!” he whispered. “What’s up?” I asked. He shook his head in disbelief, “We just danced our first dance in California, and we didn’t get to do a California twirl!”

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 31st, 2007 at 9:49 am and is filed under 15 California. 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.