All the Way Around

As I looked out the car windows, a feeling of serenity came over me. The road signs, the scenery, and the service stations all spoke the same word to me: home. These familiar sights were leading us toward Greenfield, Massachusetts for the Extravadance, an extra-long dance beginning with waltzing at 6:30 followed by contras until midnight. We made no exception for this New England dance, arriving an hour late and missing the waltzing session.

We walked in just as the dance Trip to Lambertville was beginning. Excitedly, we joined hands and hopped in at the bottom of the shortest set. That night, a short set meant a line with a foot or two of space left between it and the back wall, against which were haphazardly placed chairs, water bottles, and articles of clothing. It was our first dance back in New England. I recognized the face of every woman that I balanced with in the center and I knew well the swing of every neighbor. It felt incredible to be back.

Among the locals, people we had been dancing with since we started contra, Dave and I recognized several people we met during the trip–a caller from North Carolina, a partner from Rochester, and another caller from California had all come to the Guiding Star Grange in Greenfield. During one swing, Dave cried, “Look! It’s Bob Isaacs!” He had been one of my favorite callers of the trip, and it was exciting to see him again. He greeted us with a “welcome home” and commented on the mardis gras beads we wore. In fact, they were the very beads we got from the celebratory dance he called in Glenside, PA several months before.

The caller announced that the next dance would be a square. Bob Isaacs approached me and said with a wink, “I hear that you’re not a fan of squares,” alluding to my blog article about Glenside, “but maybe you would make an exception and dance this one with me?” I joined him in a nearby square for the dance “Three Little Sisters.” Will Mentor, the first caller of the night, introduced it as a “flowing, southern dance.” Thinking back, I remembered that the only two places we encountered that dance were indeed in the south: North Carolina and Alabama.

In my experience, the Guiding Star Grange is packed full of really good contra dancers on any give Friday or Saturday. For the Extravadance, this was doubly true. However, everyone crowded into the center two lines of the already cramped dance space. This made dancing in these sets somewhat dangerous, with dancers wildly twirling and otherwise embellishing, regardless of space. The callers tried to coax some of these dancers into the outer sets with more room, but this worked only seldomly.

I finally managed to take a break late in the evening after I got a chance to dance with all the friends I hadn’t seen in almost four months. With eyes free to look around the hall, I saw its familiar inhabitants doing the same old things: tired dancers sat out on the stage watching the musicians, the Rossi’s sold their delicious desserts and fruit bowls in the foyer, folks chatted in the coat room, on the stairs, and outside the front door, and brave people tried to cross the dance floor in order to reach the restrooms.

Clew Bay played the first set as Will Mentor called, but after the break, The Latter Day Lizards took the stage with caller Steve Zakon-Anderson. With their inclusion of brass and percussion along with the traditional contra instruments, the Lizards played tunes of varied styles with unbeatable rhythms, making them one of my favorite bands. They ended the dance that night with an amazing version of “The Growling Old Man and the Cackling Old Woman.”

After the last contra, Dave and I prepared to waltz. But as we stepped onto the floor, the Latter Day Lizards broke into a swing tune, and couples tore out from their seats to dance swing as we retreated to the side. We watched and waited for the next tune, and it came sooner than we thought. Almost mid-note and to everyone’s suprise, the band somehow turned the tune from swing to waltz. Dave and I joined the other couples and did our first waltz together in a long time on a familiar floor.

-Colrain, MA