How do singles meet each other in Southwest Virginia?
Contra dancing!
No, it’s not Guerilla Street dancing or anti-square dancing. Frankly, I can’t describe it myself since I haven’t seen it yet, but I can’t wait to witness it. Not that I’m looking for someone . . . happily married here . . . but it sounds like a ton of fun! I first heard about the phenomenon of contra dancing about a year ago when I met Adina Gordon. She’s a caller for contra dances and was living in Radford at the time. Contra dance has been around, oh, a long time, and has a host of fans and followers throughout Virginia, and certainly in our Great Southwest Virginia. Okay, we don’t have the bars and the typical single scene you’ll find in NoVA, but frankly, this sounds even better; you get to meet people while doing something fun and active rather than getting and looking sloppy over several cosmos in a smoky environment. The best description I found for contra dancing is this from Sharon Barrett Kennedy at art-rageous.net:
“As to history, contra dancing is a traditional dance form that originated in Scotland and Ireland and in England. . . it’s just been in the last ten or twenty years that this style of dance has become popular from coast to coast. There are special contra dance weekends in various parts of the country, and even contra dance cruises! Some bands are nationally known in contra dance circles, and when groups such as “Swallowtail” or “Wild Asparagus” are playing at a festival, it’s not uncommon to have 200 or more people all dancing at the same time. The energy and enthusiasm that one experiences at these big dance festivals is absolutely incredible! Contra dancing appeals to a wide variety of people: I’ve danced with accountants and schoolteachers, with computer programmers and stone masons, with university professors and with grad students…
I’ve heard stories of couples that met through contra dancing. For those who want to meet others but hate the bar scene, and are uncomfortable with that awkward, “Say, come here often?”, contra dancing seems like the solution to having a great time and oh, by the way, maybe meeting someone. One site actually says, “Singles welcome!” (www.floydcontradance.org).
You can find contra dances through a couple of sites:
- http://www.twodogwaltz.com/contradance.html
- http://www.norfolk.folkdancer.com/VA.htm
- http://www.shawnbrenneman.com/index.html
Shawn Brennan is a dancer and a caller. You can access her calendar of gigs—man, this woman gets around! You’re more likely to find contra dancing opportunities in your area just from looking at her calendar. It looks like there are dances occurring at the Rock School in Damascus, but I got into a maze of Google and gave up. Maybe you’ll have better luck. For me, I’m going to head to Sun Theater at Winter Sun, 302 South Locust St. in Floyd, VA where Blue Ridge Country Dancers host community contra dances every second Saturday. They suggest that dress is casual, but I hear dress light! This is like a 3 hour aerobic workout! Wear soft flexible shoes for dancing. Don’t worry if you don’t know the steps. At every event callers teach each dance before they actually do it. The music is live, and it’s a great way to get to know people. Sound like a date to me!
–Lucinda McDermott Piro