Seattle, WA (Emerald City)
“They better have chocolate at this dance,” I whined to Dave, as we walked towards the Phinney Neighborhood Center for our second dance in Seattle—the Emerald City Contra. I guess I was having a bad day, the kind that always makes me crave chocolate.
We stepped inside to the bright yellow dance hall and there it was. On the table by the door sat three bags of chocolate: milk, 45% cacao, and 70% cacao. I scanned the events of the day for good deeds. Had I prevented the disappearance of an endangered species or sequestered a significant amount of carbon dioxide? When nothing surfaced, I grabbed a piece of the 70% anyway before someone with better karma got to it first, happily handing over my seven dollars to enter the dance.
Savoring the sweet bitterness, I watched a man winding strings of lights around columns that separated the dance floor from the sitting area. The space was much smaller than the other Seattle contra dance hall, but it had a cozier feel to it. As dancers slowly trickled in, folks chatted while exchanging their street sneaks for soft soled dancing shoes. One dancer told me that she found the Emerald City dance friendlier than the Lake City one. Her theory was that the chairs at the Phinney Neighborhood Center were arranged in “conversational groupings” whereas the chairs in the other hall were set up in lines. She and her friend had tried rearranging them in Lake City once, but fifteen minutes later, she saw that they had been put back into their strict lines.
The caller, Mike Richardson, joined the band on the stage and asked the crowd, “Anyone here to dance?” As people milled about looking for a partner he exclaimed, “What a coincidence! Now, assume the position!” Everyone lined up for an easy dance that was great for beginners, who at this time made up the majority of the dancers.
The second dance was a circle mixer which the caller announced as “a buffet style dance where you get a tasty morsel of each dancer.” “Speaking of tasty morsel…” Dave said, grabbing us each another piece of chocolate, milk for him, dark for me, before we joined the circle together. When the tune started, the circle consisted of a mostly older crowd, but as we continued, more and more dancers wandered into the hall and joined us. By the end of the dance, our circle filled the floor. The majority of dancers were under the age of 40 and many were in their 20s, an uncharacteristically young crowd for the west coast.
I was amazed to find that the band that night, Out of the Woods, was made up of only three musicians: a pianist, a fiddler, and a guitarist who also played mandolin. The energy of the incredible ragtime dance tune that began the next contra made it seem like it was being played by a full orchestra. Most of the other dancers appeared similarly moved by the music and the hall was filled with exuberant balances and excited vocalizations.
After I thanked my partner for a great dance, I noticed our host for the night sitting on the stage, chatting with the band. I walked over to join her and she asked me how I liked the floor. When I smiled in approval, she told me that it was a new floor made of bamboo, recently built for the contra dance.
I grabbed a partner for the next dance and we took turns impressing each other with different ways to swing and spin during another lively tune. The dance had a lot of passing through and petronella twirls and our line was full of energetic dancers, including the caller from the previous night’s Lake City dance. Dave, who was also dancing in this line, was partnered with a woman who worked as a meditation specialist. She was interested in “why contra dancing worked,” and had been coming for a few months after being introduced to it by a co-worker. She said that the intimacy of eye contact and the connection of the swing made it feel like she and the person she swung with were all that existed. Dave responded that he had heard contra dance described as a sort of meditation for exactly that reason.
After Dave and I did the last waltz together, we walked over to the table for one last piece of chocolate. “So,” Dave said to a man sitting there, making sure he knew which chocolate was in which bag, “that’s the middle, that’s the milk, and that’s…” “the medicine,” answered the man, referring to the dark chocolate. Well, I know I felt better—but I think the dancing had something to do with that too.
-Seattle, WA
