All the Way Around

Kelly, our Portland host, took some time off work to show us around the city. At our first stop, an outdoor market in the middle of downtown, a group of young boys played marimbas on a stage near the food vendors. Marimbas are essentially oversized xylophones, and each one set up on the stage was a different size and tone. When we arrived, the youngest performer, a boy around nine, was keeping time on the largest one. Thoom thoom thoom thoom, it sounded, as he beat the keys with huge hammers.

I felt the rhythm in my body and saw some people dancing near the stage. “These guys would make a great contra dance band,” I thought to myself. It was a completely different sound from the fiddle, but like all contra tunes, it was music that insisted on being danced to. I took their business card and emailed them suggesting a new career path for the band, but I never heard back from them.

Kelly showed us the highlights of the market, including an Elvis impersonator and a shop of fabrics and clothes from India. The Portland light rail track ran directly through the market, and people constantly had to get out of the way of the train honking for them to keep clear. Kelly remarked that it looked dangerous, but people were rarely hit.

After a Thai dinner at one of Kelly’s favorite restaurants, we headed to the dance early. I’m not used to arriving early to anything, so I was concerned we would be doing a fair amount of waiting around. Surprisingly, a large crowd of the Portland dancers got to the Fulton Community Center before even the beginner’s session had begun.

The people at the door had heard about our trip, and let us in for the member price. I looked around the hall. It was impressive, with a large, shiny floor and a raised stage with curtains.

The caller began the beginner’s session with a large circle. There were many young people there for the lesson, and I asked one of them to dance who had never done it before. The circle stretched to fill the room, made up of probably 60 or 70 people, many of whom were either brand new or had only danced once or twice before. The caller explained each move in detail before letting the circle loose on it. She was very thorough, teaching ladies chains, right-and-left throughs, and even heys. She also did a demonstration of a swing, picking me at random to perform with.

A few dances in, my partner told me she went to school in Asheville, and had danced only once before. She danced at the Warren Wilson dance, and was looking forward to returning to it after her semester off. She found out about the Portland dance on the internet. I told her that she would only have to go to this dance a few weeks in a row, and she would be ready to wow the North Carolina crowd when she returned. She nodded and grinned.

Because of the Cascade Contra weekend in Eugene, there were a high proportion of beginners, making the dance high energy and fun. The music and calling complimented this energy nicely. The band was L’Orage and played French Canadian tunes. The caller, Nan Evans, was very experienced.

During the break, one of the dance organizers announced a raffle. At the door, everyone who entered was given a ticket. The number called out was very close to mine, and it happened that my neighbor gent claimed the prize: a L’Orage cd.

Lisa and I were partners for a dance near the end of the evening. My neck had been a bit stiff from all the driving we had done recently, but I didn’t give it much thought. The dance contained contra corners, and Lisa and I were excited to show off. As we balanced and swung in the center, I lifted her up and spun her around. The next time through, Lisa did the same for me. After that, I lifted her again. When she lifted me up the second time, my neck went completely stiff, and when the dance was over, I realized that I was out of commission for the rest of the night. All I could manage was a cautious final waltz and a few sideward glances at a dancer who looked like Einstein as I sat out.

On the ride home, Kelly offered to share some wine with us, and Lisa suggested it might make my neck feel better. After a few glasses, things really got wild. The three of us played Yahtzee, then stayed up late into the night playing Tetris and Mario on his daughter’s original Nintendo.

The next day, Kelly continued to give us a tour of Portland. We went to Powell’s book store, the largest used book store in the country (and home to the steepest parking garage I’ve ever seen), several waterfalls on the outskirts of town, and a roller skating rink with live pipe organ music.

Neither Lisa or I had roller skated in years, but Kelly insisted on treating us. “Good roller skates for my friends,” he said with a wink to the woman behind the rental window. We were both shaky at first, and I fell down once, further agitating my sore neck. But by the end of the evening, we were doing a few tricks, and we even learned to stop. We left the rink excited to skate again.

-Beaverton, OR

“I got the job!” Lisa screamed as she hung up her cell phone and jumped into my arms. She’d applied to 14 jobs while on this trip, doing internet research and performing telephone interviews. The one she’d just been offered was her first choice and was located in Corvallis, Oregon, a short drive from Eugene, our next stop. Lisa looked forward to the Eugene dance, excited to meet the people in her future dance community.

We said our goodbyes to California through the redwoods, then drove through the forests and fields of southern Oregon. After this full day’s drive, we arrived in Eugene hungry. I took Lisa out for a celebratory dinner at any place she wanted. She decided on a Thai place and we stepped inside. As our food arrived, Lisa pointed to the table behind me. “Those are contra dancers,” she whispered. I don’t know how she figured this out, but sure enough, they were at the dance that evening. Even more surprising, they weren’t the only ones there we recognized.

We walked into the Cesar Chavez School Gymnasium and saw the members of Massachusetts band Airdance tuning up. At the side of the hall, I saw the caller for the night: Nils Fredland. The last time we’d danced to him was at the Dance Flurry in New York. He and the band were in Eugene for the Cascade Contras dance weekend. Because we wouldn’t be staying for Cascade, Nils invited us to a post-dance party that night.

The dance was well attended, and people filled the lines as some sat out on the bleachers at the side. The calling and music infused me with energy as I zipped up and down the line. Lisa and I were partners early on and we let loose with everything we had. As new neighbors approached, we tried our best not to overwhelm anyone with twirls and turns, but I’m sure we pushed a few of them farther than they wanted to go. My only excuse is a possible sugar rush brought on by the candies offered at the door.

An interesting dance early in the night was a 4 facing 4 dance involving a snake around figure. Couples standing side by side in lines of four had to snake around their previous neighbor line of 4 to arrive at new neighbors. Nils demonstrated the move with my line of 4. As he did so, he introduced me to the Eugene dancers as a traveling contra dancer from the Northeast. My 13-year-old partner looked impressed.

At the waltz before the break, Lisa asked me if I could see myself dancing with this community long term, moving out to Oregon with her. Part of the purpose of this trip was to find a nice place to live outside the Northeast, if such a place existed. As things stood, Lisa would be moving to Oregon at least for the summer to work the job she accepted. Maybe she could move back to New England after that, or maybe I could move with her, find a job in Oregon, and stay there for a while. This was simply not a decision I was ready to make. “I don’t know,” I whispered, pivoting us around to clear my head. The dance ended and we didn’t talk about it any more, but the question still hung in the air.

Halfway through the second set, I danced with a tall girl in her 20s fairly new to contra dancing. Nils called a dance with a diagonal chain, sometimes a difficult move, but the Eugene dancers seemed up to the challenge. Things started well, but after a while I started to see a confused look pervading the set. Just before a progression, our next neighbor couple dropped out. “Um, we have to get out of here,” I explained to my partner. With no neighbors, we were sure to cause problems during the diagonal chain. We fled just as the next time through began, and joined the bottom of the next line, where we finished the dance. When it was over, my partner excitedly told me that that was one of the most fun dances she had ever done.

Throughout the night, I noticed a woman in black dancing spins and turns everywhere she could. She was probably the wildest dancer on the floor, and I asked her to dance near the end of the night. Sometimes my energy wanes by that point, but not then. I twirled her and she twirled me, and she was great at the swing. She never clapped for petronella turns, instead striking a pose before the next circle balance. We locked foreheads while swinging, and kept eye contact during the half a hey, weaving by our neighbors.

I pointed her out to Lisa as we danced the final dance together, and explained how good she was. As she was about to become my neighbor, Lisa forced me to her right at the end of our swing, switching our roles. We passed through to the next and Lisa got to swing with her. “She’s ok,” she said nonchalantly at our next swing, “not as good as me.”

After the dance, we met our host at her place. She talked with us about the places we had been, but I was anxious to talk with Nils at the after party. “We have an invitation to a party,” our host told us, then offered to drive. Relieved that she had heard about the party, too, we agreed to carpool. As we pulled up to the house and walked inside, Nils and the band were nowhere to be seen. Instead, there was a table full of ice cream and sweets, and 7 or 8 dancers sitting around it. We were at the wrong party. Each of the guests tried to get us to gorge ourselves on cookies, cake, and pie, as if to tempt us away from the other party. I explained the mixup to our host, who laughed at the fact that we had misunderstood one another.

We dropped a tired Lisa off back at her place, and proceeded to the other party. I joked with our host that we were contra dance party hoppers.
We got to the other house and Nils got up to greet me. We talked over a beer about the news back home and the trip. “We’ve seen a lot on this trip, and had fun dancing in so many places,” I told him, “but I still miss home.”

“Home misses you too,” Nils said with a smile.

I took another sip and contemplated the decision before me. The Northwest or the Northeast? I put it off.

-Corvallis, OR