Research Guides
Contra Dance Music in Seattle: An Analysis and Archival Proposal
Eva Reich
June 8th, 2012
Introduction
In the present work, I first attempt to give an overview of contra dancing in Seattle, and then give direction as to how the practice could best be archived. The former section appears in four parts: First, a description of the defining characteristics of contra dance and its accompanying music, followed by a detailed ethnographic description of the two weekly dances in Seattle. Then, I briefly discuss the origins of the dance, and its history in the Northwest. Thirdly, an overview of the geographic positionality of the musicians recorded in my project, as well as an analysis of the ways in which contra dance acts as a marker of place. Finally, I discuss the nature of the contra dance community.
In the second section of the paper, I comment on the possibility of the continued documentation of contra dance music in Seattle, addressing challenges of the proposition and providing some guidelines based on my recent experiences in the field.
Part 1: Contra Dancing in Seattle
I. Description of the Basic Form
Contra dance music consists of songs that are 32 bars long, which are usually divided into two distinct, equal parts, known as an A part and a B part. Musicians generally play two songs, or sometimes three, for each individual dance, strung together in a medley. There are three types of commonly played tunes—marches, jigs, and reels—and each offers a unique feel for the dancers.
The dance itself is done in long sets of couples across the sets from each other. Two couples (four people) do a series of movements that last once through the tune (such as “hay,” “do-si-do,” “balance and swing,” “allemande,” and many others), then progress up or down the set to dance with new couples. This continues for seven to ten minutes.
Each dance is taught by a caller, who stands at the front of the hall next to the band. In addition to teaching the dances, this person communicates with the band to match the tunes to the feel of a particular dance, decides how long each dance will last, and, perhaps most importantly, plans the dances for the evening based on the dancers’ skill and energy levels.
The format described above is common to all contra dancing, regardless of location. I will now describe the more specific practices of the dances here in Seattle, which take place at the Lake City Community Center each Thursday evening, and at the Phinney Neighborhood Center every Friday night.
Ethnographic Description of the Setting
At the Lake City contra, preparations for the dance begin around 7 p.m. or before. Sherry Nevins, who runs the dance, along with a host of volunteers (most of whom are long-time dancers) open the hall and set up. The piano, lamps, and podium must be taken out of a storage closet, quilts are hung on the walls (to improve the acoustics of the space), and a few dozen chairs are set up for dancers to use while changing shoes or resting. The band arrives early—by 7:15, at least, although the exact time varies depending on the week—in order to arrange their space on the stage, do a quick sound check, and, in some cases, decide what they will play that evening. The usual soundman, Alan Roberts, is a resident of Seattle, and is very, very good at what he does. He is known locally for using a soundboard program on his iPad, which, as well as being very portable, allows him to adjust the levels from any point in the room.
Dancers trickle in at various times of the evening. Each week, there is a beginners’ lesson before the dance, taught either by the caller that evening or Sherry (who is herself an accomplished caller). The number of beginners varies by the week, although usually there is only a handful at this dance. Dancers range in age from teenagers to men and women in their eighties, although the vast majority at this dance are middle-aged.
At 8 o’clock sharp, the dancers line up in sets—usually two, but sometimes more or fewer, depending on the evening, and the popularity of the band. The caller walks through the first dance, and then the contras begin. A typical evening follows a format of five or six contra, then a waltz, which is followed by a short break. At the Lake City Dance, there is a hambo after the break (a type of Swedish couple dance), then more contras (usually about 4), and the final waltz. This particular dance lasts three hours, until 11 p.m.
Between each of the dances, there is a chaotic interlude in which the dancers find new partners and form new sets. In contra dancing, it is standard practice, and for some a matter of etiquette, to dance with a different person for each dance. At the end of the evening, there is a flurry of activity to return the hall to its pre-dance state: the piano is put away, as are the quilts and lamps.
The Friday night dance follows the same format, with Tom and Amy Wimmer, who run the dance, arriving well before the 7:30 p.m. start time in order to prepare and decorate the hall. The group tends to be younger than that of Thursday’s dance, and often is significantly more crowded (due in part to the smaller hall size). After the Friday night dance, which ends at 10, a group often goes out to a local bar for drinks and conversation.
II. History of the Practice
Contra dancing as it is known today developed out of English Country dancing, which then spread to the European continent (where, in France, it became known as contredanse, a possible origin for the modern name). In the late 17th and 18th centuries, the dance was brought to New England, where, mixed with the influences of new immigrants, it became contra dance proper.
Local History
While country dancing has been popular in the Northwest for centuries, the current contra dance movement has its roots in 1974, with the “revival” of square dancing. As Sherry Nevins puts it,
“In November 1974 a great country dance revival began in Seattle. Sandy Bradley and The Gypsy Gyppo String Band (Warren Argo, Jack Link, and Jerry Mitchell) started it with participatory old-time square dancing at a tavern in Pioneer Square. The dance moved to the G-Note Tavern in Greenwood in 1977. In 1979 contra dancing was introduced, which got a big boost from bands and callers touring from New England. After several years contras surpassed squares in popularity.
“In 1985 the dance moved to the Ballard Eagles Hall; weekly open band dances were also held at the New Melody Tavern (which became the Tractor Tavern). The dance moved to its present location at the Lake City Community Center in 1998. Over the years many other contra dances popped up in Seattle as well as in surrounding communities such as Olympia, Bellingham, and Tacoma.”
Despite their shared beginnings in Seattle, there now exists a rather deep divide between the contra and square dance communities of this region, something that is, as far as I can tell, unique to the Northwest.
While the contra dances were first sustained by bands and callers from New England, and these touring groups still bring excitement and variation to the dance when they visit, a rich group of musicians and callers has developed here in the Northwest over the last few decades, and the practice is at present locally sustainable.
III. Contra Music as a Marker of Place
In fact, the majority of the musicians and callers that I recorded are from the West Coast, and the majority of those from the Puget Sound area. Despite the geographical similarities, the music varies greatly. The first band I recorded, which consisted of Nils Fredland (VT) on trombone, Claude Ginsburg (Seattle) on fiddle, Dave Bartley (Seattle) on guitar, and Marni Rachmiel (Seattle) on flute and piccolo, played music that is mostly contemporarily composed. The next band, Out of the Wood (Vickie and Pat Marron and Kathy Bowman, all from Idaho) plays a majority of traditional melodies, with a few newer ones mixed in. Dale Russ and Laurie Andres, both of Seattle, played very traditional Irish tunes, while the Toad Mountain Ramblers played traditional old time music. The OpporTunists, from California’s Bay Area, played more Scottish and Cape Breton tunes than any of the other groups, but also mixed in some traditional contra melodies. Finally, Mac’s Quackers (consisting of W.B. Reid and Frank Blade, both of Seattle, and Bob McQuillen of New Hampshire) played an eclectic mix of old-time music and New England “chestnuts.” While I did not record any Quebecois music, there is a thriving community of French Canadian musicians and callers here in Seattle, which often make appearances at the local contra dances.
Indeed, while contra dancing originated in New England and currently exists throughout the country, the Northwest seems to be unique in both the cultural breadth of its high-quality music, as well as the combined attitudes and expertise of its dancers. While I have not personally experienced contra dancing outside of this region, a number of dancers who have say that the Northwest has the best combination of a welcoming, inclusive community with really great dancing. As Scotty Leach, a 20-year-old musician and dancer from Olympia told me, the Northeast has great dancing, but the dancers are very cliquish. In the Midwest, apparently, everyone is very friendly, but the dancing is not very good, and the same is true of California. The only other place that he said has a similar dynamic to Seattle is Atlanta, Georgia. It seems to me that this dynamic is due in part to the relative newness of contra dancing to the Seattle area, and in part to the collection of cities in this area, most notably Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver, BC.
IV. Contra as Community
The contra dance community in Seattle is an interesting group. Not necessarily the individual people, but rather the ways in which it is defined, and how it interacts with its members’ other communities. One way that I have recently heard to describe this amalgamation of musicians, dancers, callers, and listeners that is at once both very local and very national is as a tribe. The word seems fitting, as it implies “a social group comprising numerous families, clans, or generations together with slaves, dependents, or adopted strangers” or “a group of persons having a common character, occupation, or interest.”
With this tribal nature of the group in mind, one can examine further the ways in which it interacts with others communities. In Thomas Turino’s Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation, he asserts that contra dancing and old-time music in urban areas such as Seattle should be classified as a “cultural cohort” rather than a “cultural formation” because in this context, the dances are not “part of a broader community cultural formation.” While it is true that the contra community is a subgroup of the larger Seattle community, I would argue that, as people become more involved in the community, it ceases to be “mainly a community in relation to the dance and music.” Rather, real friendships are formed that become the basis for an individual’s community. Indeed, while the community may have been formed by love for the music and dance, it is held together by the bonds created between its members. In addition to interacting with the wider community of Seattle, the local contra dance community is also connected to a nation-wide web of dancers and musicians, created by contra dance camps, which people often travel long distances to attend.
Part 2: Proposals for Future Archiving
Suggestions for Continuing to Document this Practice
There are a number of options for documenting contra dance music, as well as the dance itself. One of the first decisions to be made is whether to record only the audio part of the practice, or whether to videotape the actual dancing as well. While the dance itself is a truly integral part of the practice, if it were documented visually, then all of the participants would have to be informed and asked for consent, which presents a logistical and/or ethical challenge.
Assuming that the practice would be documented through audio only, another decision arises: whether to record the music through the soundboard (to avoid background noise), or to set up a recording system apart from the soundboard, which would pick up some of the noise of the dancers, offering a more complete view of the experience, but would also not give the best representation of the music. In my own work, I chose to record apart from the soundboard, but I am not completely happy with the consequent quality of my recordings, in which the balance between the instruments is often not ideal.
There have already been some attempts to document contra dance in Seattle—most notably the work of videographer and photographer Doug Plummer. Plummer’s work examines the dance from a truly artistic point of view, utilizing technology to edit to achieve optimal excitement and motion within the video. While this extreme editing of the original documentation is not ideal, in my opinion, for archival purposes, it is important to note that it does appeal to a wider audience than unedited footage. Since an unedited recording of a single dance can be more than ten minutes long, encompassing a whole bunch of repetitions of (usually) only two tunes, there are probably a lot of people who would appreciate the abridged version.
Another already-existing documentation of contra dance music in the Northwest is the Portland Collection, a set of two tune books (with a third in progress) with sheet music for a number of standard tunes played by contra musicians. This collection has proved to be a great resource for musicians, allowing for those new to contra music to become familiar with some of the favorite tunes. However, sheet music alone is not ideal for the preservation of traditional music.
Both of these are examples of archival self-representation—that is, the people who created the documentations came from within the contra dance community, and in that sense they do not fit the model of ethnomusicological documentation of something that is “other.” However, I believe that archival self-representation can lead to a more accurate representation, the dissolution of colonial power relations, and more active participation in the archiving process. This was demonstrated in John Vallier’s “Sound Archiving Close to Home.” I would suggest that any further documentation of contra dance music also be self-representative.
One thing that differentiates contra dancing from many other folk arts studied by ethnomusicologists is that, in general, the people who participate have the resources to document their practice, and the connections to implement effective outreach. Returning to the example of Doug Plummer, there was recently a movement in which over $7,500 was raised to produce a calendar showcasing his photography of contra dance. The fundraising was done almost entirely through online networking of the dance community, but it shows that people interested in contra dance are willing and able to support projects of this nature.
Funding the Project
While people in the contra dance community are willing to fund projects documenting the practices, they should not be relied upon or expected to singlehandedly fund continued recordings for the Puget Sounds archive. Rather, appeals should be made to university and government arts programs for support. This is a huge challenge, as these programs are already struggling financially.
Copyright and Ethical Concerns
In many cases, there are four main entities to consider when thinking about copyright in contra dance music recordings: the author of the tunes, the musicians, the dance choreographer, and the caller. Many of the tunes do not have authors, which can remove that copyright constraint, but many do. And if even a composer or band does have copyrights to a recording, I think that most people in the community are more than happy to share their work with others. There really is not any money to be had in this type of music and dance, and so most people do it for the pure joy of creation, preservation, and connection. Usually, they are just thrilled when someone with is truly interested in the art.
Having said that, for the purposes of this project, I believe that any recordings would be protected under “fair use,” as they are for educational and informational purposes only, and will not result in any type of monetary gain, except for the musicians themselves, if they eventually wanted to publish the recordings, and even then, in this type of music, it is more likely that they would experience a net loss by producing the record. Just as Anthony Seeger explains in “Ethnomusicologists, Archives, Professional Organizations, and the Shifting Ethics of Intellectual Property,” it is very difficult to make money from “folk” or “world” music publications. While the recordings I made are in no way high enough quality to be published, future recordings may well be, and it would be important to understand the consequences of that.
If the permission forms we used were to be continued, the musicians would have every right to request and then publish any recordings of them. However, I do not recommend that the forms be used in the future. Because of the format of the form, and the collective nature of the contra dance band and caller grouping, the people I asked to sign the form were often confused as to where they should sign (as there was only one line for a signature, and I generally had all of the participants use one form). After the first recording session, I crossed out and re-wrote part of the form to make it more appropriate for my uses, but it still was not ideal. In at least one instance, I did not even ask the band members to sign, because they were so verbally enthusiastic in their consent.
Preservation Issues
As we have discussed extensively this quarter in class and through the readings, medium degradation is an issue for all recordings. To address this, I suggest that any further recordings be done with high-quality equipment, and be deposited directly into the archive for proper storage.
For contra dance music documentation specifically, one of the most challenging things is keeping track of the multitude of information attached to each individual dance. Tune names and authors, and dance names and authors are all vital to the history of contra dance, but it can often be difficult to obtain all of this information. In my own experience, I had to email the performers the recordings after the fact, and they sent me the tune names. Unfortunately, I was not able to get the tune names for two of the dances.
Description and Cataloging of the Materials
Aside from the tune and dance names and authors, it is important to include the following in an archival description of the materials: the name of the band and its members, the caller, the date, the venue, possibly the sound engineer (depending on whether or not the recordings are done through the soundboard), and the collector. To catalogue the materials, I would separate them out by venue, and then put them in sequence by the date. While this method differs from the generally accepted idea of provenance discussed by Miller, it makes more sense in the context of the organized dances that are common. Most contra dances take place weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly, so the venue is a constant variable. This would also allow for the responsibility of recording to be passed among the dance community members without disruption to the cataloguing process.
Access to the Collection and Outreach
Access to the collection would depend on the rights given by the performers. Based on my experience, most people will be willing to allow their recordings to be permanently housed in the library, perhaps with online access to people directly affiliated with a university.
Conclusions
Because of its long history and thriving contemporary community here in Seattle, contra dance music would be a positive addition to the Puget Sounds archive. While there are a number of challenges to overcome in creating documentation of the practice, as described above, it is important to preserve this art form as it represents a unique amalgamation of musical cultures and artistic imaginations that will continue to shape its future.