Contra dances celebrate 30th year in Centre County

Not many may know it, but Centre County is home to a long-standing tradition of New England-style contra dances, thanks to a group of followers known as the Central Pennsylvania Country Dance Association.

The organization will continue celebrating its 30th anniversary year on Friday with a special Halloween-themed dance at its usual venue, State College Friends School.

The dance is open to the public and will run from 7:30-10:30 p.m. Attendees are encouraged to arrive in costume. Live music will be performed by the Open Contra Dance Band, a pickup band comprised of local and regional musicians.

Bruce Young, the dance group’s talent coordinator, said each dance starts with a long line of couples facing each other. The dancers go through the different “figures” of the dance as led by a caller, then switch partners until they have danced with everyone in the line.

“It’s really neat (and) very social,” Young said. “It’s called social dancing because it’s what people did in the early days in the U.S., when the European settlers would do this as a main socializing activity.”

Contra dance is organized in a modular fashion that somewhat resembles modern square dancing, although contra dance is more accessible, he said. A typical dance may come in the form of eight-step figures, which are then incorporated into a larger choreography.

“If you want to do a certain type of dance, usually there’s a right way and a wrong way, but contra dance allows for certain types of expression,” said Karen Dabney, a member of the dance group. “The focus is on the fun. That’s why I like the dance, and that’s why I like coming back.”

The group was officially formed in 1987 when Dick Cole, a Penn State faculty member and dance caller, organized a few dances with members of a local band named Crooked Stovepipe, said Paula Ralph, the group’s secretary. Cole had learned to call contra dances in his youth, and Crooked Stovepipe happened to be looking for a venue to play music. This connection led to the establishment of contra dance in State College.

Ralph joined the group in 1987 mere weeks after it began. Over the years, she said attendance for each dance has steadily risen, from roughly 15 participants in the early days to as many as 40 now.

“It’s been wonderful to watch the series grow and become a long-standing tradition,” Ralph said. “There are still lots of people in the State College area who have never heard of contra dancing and don’t know what it is, but after 30 years in the area, it is finally becoming more commonplace to find that folks who have never tried it have at least heard of it.”

Throughout its history, the group tried hosting the dances in many different venues, she said — gyms, churches, fire halls — until it found a satisfactory home in the State College Friends School, which provided a “welcoming” space and good acoustics.

Dances are held from September to April, usually on the third Friday of each month. While many of the same dancers show up to each event, there’s usually a different band that performs each time.

“Typically, the music has a certain rhythm, certain time signatures, certain types of fiddle tunes, like jigs and reels and hornpipes,” Young said. “Sometimes, the caller asks for a type of march, (or) sometimes a type of smooth, flowing music. But then, it’s up to the bandleader to kind of accommodate those requests.”

Young’s hope is to keep the dance group alive through the coming years, regardless of what will happen. In some circles around the country, there has recently been a focus on techno- and electronic-influenced contra dances, which Young said would be interesting to explore in addition to the more traditional dances he organizes.

“(Contra dancing) is just all-around a social activity,” longtime dance group member Catherine Grigor said. “It doesn’t need a lot of anything; it just needs a place to dance.”

This story was originally published October 19, 2017 at 10:04 AM with the headline "Contra dances celebrate 30th year in Centre County."