All the Way Around

After spending a day in the city of Chicago, driving around and seeing the Sears Tower and Lincoln Park Zoo, we found the cost of parking the car exceeded $30. Rather than repeat this, we took a train into town from my uncle’s house in the suburbs and walked around.

The Saturday night contra dance was at the University of Chicago in Hyde Park, out of walking distance. After roaming around Millennium Park and Navy Pier, we hopped a number six bus south as indicated by the directions to Shoreland Hall on the dance website. This was the correct bus, but the directions led us to the wrong building, the Ida Noyes Hall, where dances are also sometimes held. Jumping onto a shuttle bus under the guise of U Chicago students, we at last managed to find the correct building, though we were quite late.

Shoreland Hall turned out to be a grand place. The lobby was enormous, with beautiful couches and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. The woman at the front desk took one look at us and remarked, “The contra dance is up those stairs.”

Lisa’s sister Katie, who is also a friend and former co-worker of mine, came with us to the dance. Though she still lives in New Hampshire, she decided to visit us in Chicago to see the city and check up on us as we traveled. I was excited to get to dance with her again.

As we entered the dance space, we saw a big long room with many college aged dancers already in the middle of a dance. One end of the room had a stage, on which sat two musicians, a fiddler and a guitarist, both probably in their 20s. On the other 3 sides of the room were chairs where a few dancers sat out. The wooden floor, high ceiling, and white arches carved into the walls made the room very impressive.

Katie grabbed me and we jumped in at the bottom of the set. We picked up the dance from the dancers who came at us, and after a couple of times through, we had it. The dancers were varied in their experience, and I was surprised to find several of them vaguely familiar. More than once, I came upon a neighbor I was sure I had seen before.

For the next dance, I asked someone to be my partner who happened to be a UChicago student. UChicago students, I found, made up the vast majority of the 40 or 50 people there. We began to line up for a contra, but the caller announced the dance would be a mixer. It began in promenade position and involved walking around the room with your partner until you found another couple to dance with. The moves of the dance were simple, and at the end, you switched partners with the couple you danced with and found a new couple. The dancers were eager to mix around; I was with a different person each time, and it seemed that everyone made an effort to dance with as many partners as they could, avoiding repetition.

The music was astounding, especially considering that there were only two musicians. The fiddler, who I later learned was a student at the university as well, played the tunes with such rhythm and enthusiasm that it was impossible not to dance energetically. Hearing her play, it was no surprise that the dance was so well attended.

Just before the break, I danced with a woman from the outside community. She was older than most people in the room, but I don’t think she could have been more than 40 or 45. She asked me where I had learned to dance and I told her I was from New Hampshire. “That explains it,” she said. “It’s not uncommon to see new people here your age, but most of them haven’t danced before.” She went on to tell me about the weekly Monday night contra dances in Northern Chicago, explaining that the dancers up there are older in general and more experienced.

A student, one of the contra dance organizers, made the announcements, thanking the musicians. Then he thanked the caller. Then he thanked the sound guy, who also happened to be the caller. He finished speaking and left the stage, then was followed immediately by another student, who told the crowd that it was the first speaker’s birthday. We all sang as the musicians played “Happy Birthday.”

In the second half, I danced with one of the people I thought I recognized. “Where are you from?” I asked her. She replied, “Maine,” and at last I realized that there was a group of 3 or 4 dancers, who all happened to be from Maine, that I had danced with back in New England. They had all reunited at the University of Chicago. As we danced, we talked about where we had been in the Northeast, and of people we both knew in the dancing community.

Just before we left, I spoke with the guy who had made the announcements and asked him about the dances. He told me that generally speaking, they were always well-attended, and attracted both beginners and people who came to every dance. I was impressed that this college dance seemed to be thriving, and he explained that it had been going on before he even began at the University. “I learned to dance in Boston,” he said, “and I got involved with this dance when I got here a year later.”

As I turned to go, the student sitting next to the organizer spoke to me. “I’ve seen you before,” he said. “In New Mexico.” I was astonished. This dancer had been to the Santa Fe dance we attended a month and a half earlier while he was on spring break.

We left the dance with Lisa’s friend Joe, who put us up for the night. She hadn’t seen him in four years, and was surprised to learn that he had been contra dancing before. Though he didn’t attend the dance that night, he told us he learned to do it at Oberlin College in Ohio, where he earned his undergraduate degree.

-Downers Grove, IL

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 6th, 2007 at 10:00 pm and is filed under 24 Illinois. 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.