"Falshoods programmers believe about contra dances"

Many contra dance callers use The Caller’s Box, a phenomenal dance choreography database from Chris Page and Michael Dyck. For those of us who primarily call gender free dances, though, using it requires mental translation from gendered role terms to gender neutral ones. I’ve created a browser plugin, Caller’s Box Configurator, to fix this.

#ContraDance #TradFolk #DanceCalling

https://chromamine.com/2025/03/callers-box-configurator/

#introduction post! I'm rootrambler, a #landscape designer, #writer and #maker

I'm interested in the history of collective land use, peasant customs/resistance, farming, hunting and gathering, and foraging. Interested in dye, fiber, and food plants Hoping to use this platform to share what I'm reading/learning!

I also do #hiking #backpacking #contradance and garment #sewing

It occurred to me recently that I don’t think there are any contra dances that feature a set and link figure that's popular in Scottish Country Dance. So I decided to write some!

https://chromamine.com/2024/11/set-and-link-contras/

On my summer tour with Kingfisher the organizers of one dance told me that their group would tolerate Larks/Robins for role terms, but *preferred* Ladies/Gents. After talking it over with some other callers and dancers and weighing the factors (What will feel best for me? What will be best for the dancers? What will be good for contra dance in general?) I opted to call Larks/Robins.

https://chromamine.com/2024/07/calling-a-gendered-series-gender-free/

I just wrapped up a weeklong summer contra dance calling tour with Kingfisher (@jefftk and Cecilia Vacanti). This was my first time on tour!

We played six dances in six days with an extra day for travel at the start and an extra two days at the end, for a total of nine days on the road. We performed at these dances:

https://chromamine.com/2024/07/summer-tour-with-kingfisher-reflections/

Name: Rich
Pronouns: he/him

Dance: Binghamton Morris Men (2002–); American Travelling Morrice (2003–); formerly Bassett Street Hounds, Ribbonsteel Rapper, Salt Springs Morris, and Wild Blue Morris (all Syracuse, NY) and Flying Bark Morris (Newport News, VA). Occasional contras.

1/3

#introduction #morrisDancing #Binghamton #contraDancing
#morris #contra #morrisDance #contraDance #dance #dancing #folkDance #folkDancing

In response to my most recent post about calling dances in Nantucket, Maia wrote to me:

> Harris, I have the world's stupidest bone to pick with you. Re the dance cards on your website: I don’t think “Duple Neutral” actually means anything?

Okay, I should explain myself.

#ContraDance #TradFolk #gender

https://chromamine.com/2024/05/how-should-we-notate-role-free-contra-dance-formation/

This week I called the Nantucket's First Community Contra Dance. It was an unusual gig. The organizer is starting a contra dance community from scratch on the island. There were a small handful of experienced dancers she knew, but aside from them, the crowd was entirely new.

#ContraDance #TradFolk #Nantucket #SocialDance

https://chromamine.com/2024/05/calling-the-first-dance-in-a-community/

For the second year in a row @jefftk invited me to call contra dances with his band Kingfisher on his porch for #Somerville Porchfest, for dancers in the street. I wrote a bit last year about some of the interesting challenges in calling at this particular event and they were the same this year.

#ContraDance #TradFolk #music #dance

https://chromamine.com/2024/05/calling-contras-at-porchfest-2024/

Called to a small but devoted crowd in Concord last night and as a rare treat it was spacious enough and with experienced enough dancers for me to call this beautiful dance composition by Erik Hoffman, titled “There is no Way to Peace; Peace is the Way” (after an A.J. Muste quote).

I’m typically not a star promenade and butterfly whirl fan, but for this dance I make an exception.

For years now, one of my pet favorites in contra dancing has been the “wowee,” a figure that involves rolling away with your neighbor across the set and immediately releasing the connection to catch your partner for a swing.

Someone told me the term and figure were both borrowed from Modern Western Square Dancing. But MWSD dancers I came across said, "Nope, that's not a figure."

#Contra #ContraDance #SocialDance

https://chromamine.com/2024/02/origin-of-the-wowee/

About to call a #ContraDance at #Boskone in Boston. If you’re at the con, come out and dance! I’m a friendly instructor and I’ll be teaching a workshop before the dance.

The band, Chimney Swift, is also stellar!

Workshop at 6:30PM, dancing at 7PM.

In 2019 I decided to get back into contra dance calling after a multi-year stretch of doing very little of it. I called one dance in December, one dance in January of 2020, and then the pandemic hit. Oops.

But when my local dances started back up in 2022 I got into it again and called five dances that year.

#contra #ContraDance #SocialDance

https://chromamine.com/2024/02/contra-calling-2022-2023/

In 2023 I called an average of one #ContraDance dance per month.

In January 2024 alone I called three dances.

In February I have two more booked.

I'm gonna get good at this thing.

I REALLY like this new thing in Juneau: Before every contra dance, an hour of Contra Music Jam, hosted across the street from the dance venue. Flyer says: "Bring an instrument, any tunebooks you have (Portland Collection, Fiddlerʼs Fakebook) All are welcome. " #Alaska #ContraDance #Music #BuildingCommunity

I've got a new website for my Contra Dance calling and organizing! See where I'll be calling dances in the near future. If you want to book me to call your dance/wedding/birthday/whatever, get in touch!

#ContraDance #SocialDance

https://chromamine.com/contra/

Hello #hachyderm ! My overdue #introduction.

My name is Alex and I'm a #robotics #engineer in #EmbeddedSystems. I work at a startup making #autonomous underground mapping #drones. I'm a big fan of #rustlang but my day job is in #cpp.

In my free time I #SocialDance (mainly #ContraDance) as much as possible, play #BoardGames, read/watch #scifi and tinker with projects.

Looking for an instance, I saw @molly0xfff migrate here, and it seems @nova runs a tight ship so here I am!