Selected contra dance links
There's hundreds of web pages out there. I'm not
even going to try and list all of them. Instead I'm
going to focus on the more unusual and off-the-beaten path.
The major links
The big links page, maintained by Charlie Seelig. The most comprehensive web page
I've found. This should keep you
busy reading for a few weeks. Of particular note are the
the
resources page and
the essays page.
Michael Dyck's
contradance index: A rather detailed list of just about all contra
dances in print. Don't expect instructions -- those are in the books and
on the web sites,
but you get the needed references. Of special interest is
his sources
sub-page, which gives the table of contents for all the books, and lists
all the web sites that have dances.
Cary Ravitz has a nice set
of links hitting most of the big sites of interest to contra callers.
That should keep you busy. But there's sites I'd specially like to point out.
Choreography and caller's issues
SharedWeight: Mailing
lists, the primary one of which is for and by contra dance callers. Try
skimming the archives to get a sense of it, or see my own list
of favorites. Then join.
rec.folk.dancing: Ten years worth of contra dance
discussions. I have a separate page detailing
the best of them.
Alternative traditions
Square Dance History project: Lots of
archival footage and documentation of squares. A growing site.
Colin Hume's site: Not just relevant to English Country, many of his extensive essays also apply to contra.
Square dance interviews: Numerous interviews
of people from the square dance community, both trying to preserve
their history, and figure out where they're going. Many are very interesting
reading. What's more, there's several interviews from people involved
in traditional dance.
History
Library of
Congress collection of dance manuals: An amazing trove of an
archive of old dance manuals, a number of which involve contra dance.
Northern Junket: An invaluable history of contra and traditional dance, edited
by Ralph Page, between 1949 and 1984. I've got a separate page of my favorite parts of this magazine.
Local dances
San Diego contra dance is my home dance, and meets second and fourth Saturdays, and Fridays
of any other weekend.
English Country Dance meets early
Sunday evenings in Poway.
Reels & Squares Contra
dance is one of the few Callerlab contra dances in the country,
happening Sunday afternoons in Balboa park.
The California Dance Co-Operative
sponsors many monthly dances throughout the Los Angeles area.
The Living Tradition runs a fourth-Saturday dance in Anaheim.
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