Old-Time Music and Dance: Community and Folk Revival

13. The Indiana Contra Dancers’ Lament

— 127 — 13 THEINDIANA CONTRA DANCERS’ LAMENT Of all the sites where exclusion, consensus, transgression, and identity were negotiated, style held a special place because of its accessibility and potency. Particularly after the nationwide dance network took shape in the 1980s, dancers became more aware of the way dance style and performance practice articulated relations within the community. From this, there emerged a catalog of dance floor transgressions. Many of these were reported by dance leaders to Mary Dart and detailed in her book on contra dance and community (1995: 163–98). There was, for example, the notorious “center set syndrome,” an exquisite ritual of exclusion so named by East Coast dancers, whereby “good” dancers would scramble to find one another as partners and rush to the head of the center set (Dart 1995: 168; see also Dalsemar 1988). Concentrated in the center set, they could hope to enjoy various subtleties , such as the brief tug of the arm just before pulling into a swing. Or the knowledge of one’s established personal preferences—to swing with a walking step, a buzz step, or the obscure Bloomington skip step that might identify them as veterans. Or the idea of “giving weight” to make circular motions smooth and fast, a notion that eluded rank beginners but that could be learned with only a little coaching. Or even improvi- — 128 — Old-Time Music and Dance satory swing dance moves when idle at the end of a set. Yet the social stratification toward which this urge pointed could only undermine the risk and danger of the arbitrary dyadic encounter—not to mention the egalitarian promise of community—that was fundamental to old-time music and dance. No wonder, then, that it was thought a transgression. More often Bloomington embraced a code of charity toward its new dancers, so much so that the periodic hue and cry was raised less against the ineptness of beginners than against the intolerance of veterans. If there was snobbery, in fact, it was more often directed at callers or musicians who were trying to get the group to cooperate with some newfangled or difficult idea. If a caller was insensitive or too insistent, a set of four dancers, even one including beginners, might change the dance spontaneously by one from the set calling their own more appealing figures on the fly. This was entirely acceptable as an “orthodox stunt,” as Tolman and Page had put it, designed to repel the toodecorous effects of a “chiding prompter” (1937: 19–21). All of this might have been perplexing to a beginning dancer: that it was a good thing to know something of the code of style, but as good to know that this was not really what mattered. In spite of genuine and sometimes urgent concern for good style, there was never a breakthrough into explicit policy. There were never auditions or required levels of experience, and most everyone was aware of the effects of such practices on club square dancing. In Bloomington, it was even a troubling matter to call an “advanced” dance. If the overall “quality of dancing” became a problem for the group, Bill Meek might volunteer to teach his “Improve Your Contra” workshop, and it would be advertised with particular dancers secretly in mind. Old-time dance, after all, had originally been embraced deferentially—as tradition, as received wisdom, yet as something intangible apart from communal practice. Without recourse to higher authority, unresolvable stylistic quirks were ultimately inscribed onto their originator and tolerated. Enclaves of like-minded dancers emerged around matters of style, and those with unconventional or antisocial styles became caricatures of themselves. Because they had developed protective personalities, many persisted in their behavior, were accepted and even socialized, and became community leaders for having learned both sensitivity and — 129 — The Indiana Contra Dancers’ Lament strength from their experiences. All of this from the inconceivability of counting anyone out, from the imponderable obligation to weather all storms together. Consequently, more due to habit than deliberate effort, dancing in Bloomington grew to be very, very good. It was also idiosyncratic, perhaps as a consequence of incorporating stylistic innovation. This was a quality with which some, like Chicagoan Mark Gunther, had been impressed . Bloomington dancers, he said, “had a wonderful way of moving . Their posture and their style of movement was both individual and regional, and was probably mostly derived from very traditional New...