Las Cruces NM 2019: Contra Contra Dancing

Bayou Seco, Las Cruces, New Mexico. February 2019.

I do not like contra dancing. In fact, not only do I dislike contra dancing, I harbor actual antipathy toward the genre. It is a living dislike, as if I've got a giant, contra contra-dancing thing in my belly, like a tapeworm.

Not proud of it.

There are people I like who love contra dancing. They are smart, energetic, well-rounded, way cooler-than-me people.

One of these remarkable people will probably read this post. I'm sorry. Can we agree that seafood is delicious but some of us have an involuntary allergic reaction to it?

Although I don't know why I have such a visceral response to the dance style in general, I do know why I struggle with it in some specifics.

The main is: Math + directional challenges

Dance requires both math and a sense of direction.

I talk about this in Part 1 of my series Learning to Dance:

• Learning to Dance, Part 1: Solving for X
• Learning to Dance, Part 2: The Tao of Following
• Learning to Dance, Part 3: The Pause
• Learning to Dance, Part 4: Signals
• Learning to Dance, Part 5: Anticipation
• Learning to Dance, Part 6: It Takes a Village

So contra dancing is hard enough, but THEN! it turns out one must learn MULTIPLE dances and patterns of dance in different directions! All in one DAY!

You would think it wouldn't be so bad because there is actually a person with a mic who actually tells you in advance which step you are about to do. But on occasion a caller - who in all aspects of his life is likely a charming, high-functioning, jewel of a fellow - has trouble remembering what the steps are to a particular dance that HE himself has chosen to teach before the dancers actually perform the dance to actual music. What ensues is Pure D hell for the likes of me, as we go hither and thither in chaotic short bursts, then stand for interminable bits of time - ALL TO NO MUSIC YET! - and I wonder about the etiquette of abandoning one's partner on the ballroom floor so I can fling myself off the ship into an ocean. Because I'm not going to get the dance even if or when the caller gets things sorted.

And THEN the next dance will be a completely different dance, but all of my CPU memory will still be spinning from the previous memory-sucking operation, and ... more mixed metaphors will happen.

I'm NOT saying this happened on one beautiful February evening in Las Cruces, New Mexico. It probably didn't happen. Just imagine that it could have happened.


But let's not confuse the dance with the music. The music is roots music, Americana, I like it.

Bayou Seco, Las Cruces, New Mexico. February 2019.

The band performing in February was Bayou Seco. I relished a bit of South Lousiana in Las Cruces. A taste below: