this is contra dancing with the princeton country dancers thank you for joining us today with talking about the princeton country dancers contra dancing and we have two guests larry can you introduce yourself oh my name's larry complet and i've been dancing confidence in that is for over thirty years and it's a wonderful wonderful kind of dancing and i just would promote it to anyone who wants to experience the joy and fallen in music where do you do this we do this currently at the susanne patterson center which is the senior center in princeton review high and the old brick wall and we dance every wednesday night and for saturdays as well and our other guest is avery avery can you tell us who you are and how you got involved yeah i'm a peter man i've been contra dancing for a little over three years now i have a background in classical ballet i took about thirteen years of that and i've really enjoyed contra dance as a way for me to just release and express myself as lost socialize with other people how many people do this well we have untypical ones and i we get about forty five or fifty people from a small special event we have up to you know maybe  hundred people are i mean that we have and our database of e mail addresses is probably several hundred people you know so it's different people come in to different night but some people have pretty much come every week but it's a it's a huge community of people who do this so where they come from say they're a huge community of people well i mean our our our dance attracts people from up to an hour drive away i think i mean in new jersey there are other contraband says there's one of the northern new jersey and then there's one in philadelphia people go to there's a couple in new york city i mean the confidantes is in every state of the union but princeton new attracts people from in a radius of about you know thirty to sixty minutes how did you get that now how long have you been doing that you said about three years out three years yeah and from looking at the two of you it looks like it tracks a wide range of people yeah  fair i mean you can see from the video clip at the start of the program you can see i'm actually dancing with like i think she was probably seven years old or ten years old in the chair which confidantes thing is it's very easy accessible dancing i mean that's wh and i can't do any other kind of dancing i don't do steps but confidence in these figures is just walking we always say that if you can walk and count to eight you can contradict and that's really a true statement i don't exactly is contra dancing i had never heard of it frankly before doing this show well it's interesting i mean it is a traditional american folk dance which most americans have never heard of it is once you discover it you find that it's just as a it's in every state in the country and several foreign countries as well it's been around since the time of george washington george and martha washington contra dance it sort of focused in new england but now it's branched out to the whole country so what is the difference in doing that and looking at that video clip it kind of looks like square dancing oh well that's very true it's where dancing has many of the same figures for dancing confidence and are very much linked contra dancing actually comes from english country dancing which which people still do in england and we do actually in addition to confidence and we have an english dance every second saturday the devolved into a more sort of robust americanize version english dance it was a more formal and elegant different type of music and then i think confidence it also was influenced by french squares screen don't have to go to a concert and and have a partner no no absolutely not no in fact i mean i come with my wife and sometimes you know she has a meeting i mean we don't come together we dance anyone dance in the end it's the other you the people want to do i know i've been to some confidences sometimes you see people well there are where they'll have something saying like you know dance gently with me if someone doesn't want to be songs they get songs quickly if they get dizzy generally i find most people are pretty good at communicating your comfort level and then also you know it's easy enough that if someone kind of loses their way in the dance to kind of redirect them back into the to the flow of the day i'm yeah i think there's what's nice about it is it's a very inclusive community and there's a lot of emphasis on making sure everyone is having fun and everyone is comfortable which means there's communication about what that means for each individual how did you find out about it i had a couple friends in college contra dance and i didn't i was not involved in college but after i graduated and before the summer for going to grad school i was kind of sitting at home and i didn't have much to do because i couldn't get a job at home with my parents  e moving here so i thought you know why not i'll check out a local confidants and you know i can be kind of socially anxious like this will be good practice to go out and meet people and put myself out there so yeah i went to my local one which is the  dance in concord massachusetts and i tried it and i absolutely loved it what did you love about it well it's just it's just so much fun and exhilarating i don't know something about it just always makes me laugh and i know i can be a perfectionist being both a musician and a dancer but it's very easy with the whole ballet mentality like oh no this was not perfect and you know this was not ideal but there's a lot of openness and relaxation in it and i have a lot of people that whenever i feel like oh you're relaxing you're doing all these moves oh well because they're fun and they're simple and everyone's doing them not necessarily to to make it this this perfect art form but rather to like enjoy each other and each other's company  a very like joyful process of doing it and and it's it's something where i had a couple people tell me that they were like oh don't say you're sorry because like you can't be incorrect and you can't be a career or like it's ok you know when you're doing the tango or the more a are steps and all that but are so when you mess up your you know if you mess up like maybe you'll get off by a couple beats or something but i mean it's very easily fixed and i think generally you know all the communities i've  been a part of with contra including this one you know whenever someone messes up it isn't a thing that's shameful you know often just you know people laugh and we just move on which i think is a great life lesson in general because it's so easy to get caught up in the details and not just be like alright it happened and now here's the next thing sounds very social yes yes but you know i mean our group i mean we do socialize with other people you know little subgroups of people who have parties together i mean had babies and they were home and they got together once a week to have lunch together and that group still gets together for new year's eve said how did you get involved how did you start well i was i was single as i said i was living in princeton i was just trying to  meet people and i just randomly heard from someone knowing there's a dance up at the harlem gym church which is where we were dancing at the time and i thought well i'll give it a try and i went up there and i met a woman in the parking lot parking my car inner works or it doesn't work for you once you discover it you think oh my god how could i not have known about this you know i mean i was you know whatever i was thirty years old and i wasted thirty years not dancing where  or yeah we have we have a we actually have a beginner workshop each before each dance or dance starts at eight o'clock on a wednesday and saturday this is every everyone everyone had to hear it was a no no the when's the saturday is only for saturday and the second saturday is that english dancing but so is some thirty day there's a beginner workshop that's led by the caller and all our dances are called that's the other thing that makes this accessible you don't have to think about what you're doing because y to think a little bit but the caller is telling you what to do it's a very program dance it's like you know now we're going to circle now we're going to do that alan man now we're going to do a balance and swing and then the you know the music is also telling you what to do and i think that's part of what makes it so fun how long did it take till you really got into it or were you hooked the first night i was of the first night absolutely where you have the first night yeah really as in most is it generally that case for most people that they're hooked the first night or pick it up faster so and and there is an issue sometimes of you haven't danced but you can get a little dizzy but want to swing around the swing swing but you get used to it that's what i that oh i'm so just i'm not sure i want to do this again and i think i spoke to her and other people said you know i'll give you a chance to come back next week if you came back the second week and still does it i'm not sure i'm going to do this and i might lose my wife who said  tried again and she came back the third we never does it again really and she's just dancing up a storm we recently went to one of the dances here in princeton and talked to some of the people so i have a friend  dances or at least he used today and said and he brought me here for the first time in march and i got really interested in it although my friend never came back so you know it took off for me really well why did you get interested in it  really love the people it's a great group you get to know everybody because you dance with almost every other person or at least with the other men in the course of the night it's excellent exercise well i was looking for a interesting activity to do for the holidays and found country day answering in the newspaper called them up and came and loved it what do you love about it it combines a lot of elements so you have the social aspect you get to know people it becomes a community you also get exercise and it's just fun how did you get involved in this my wife brought me here today and we were doing contra dancing at my son's wedding about three years ago and sources who just live around the corner my wife said let's go ahead and try it so she was here a couple times so she brought me along tonight and you look like you're having a really good time having a blast it's a lot of fun they tell you what to do there's a lot of talented people who tell you what to do and so it's really enjoyable it's a great way to burn energy and laugh a lot and and have fun what's your reaction to that seem to back up what you say you know from watching the people that i talk to the just about how fun it is how much fun it actually she really enjoyed she was here a few were years ago and she really enjoyed amazing people very friendly and what more can you ask do you think people in india or england would enjoy this i think six and they dance with the sex it's about a lot of fun as well it's about if you noticed you were dancing with a little girl and it looked like you were really having fun teaching her how to do that yes i think when i was neal i mean lot of people had patients and they taught you just a tradition to pass it on there are the new people who come to be friendly and teach them and encourage them to come back after a week and this is one thing where you'll see people from different generations mingling you have a fire only go to senior citizens i mean i don't see any other event on occasions where people from different generations come together and have so much fun you do other kind of dancing not really i'm not a good dancer but this is something i got used to and  for probably twelve years now i started and then girlfriend invited me sort of on a whim and i came and i loved it and i've been dancing ever since first in san diego philadelphia now in princeton it's the same girlfriend around to get yeah but she's the country dancing so you i think because it's such a wide cross section of the community and you meet people from all walks of life you normally wouldn't you know see and get to know and it's really the people here are family almost automatically anywhere i go in the country there's a contradiction sort of a collection of people who i feel close to me because we have the shared folk tradition which i think is fairly rare and so we're sort of automatically insiders with each other up until tonight i had never heard of contrabands why is it that it seems to be a hidden thing i hadn't jammed that's a great question and i think part of it is there's an attitude in general that music is for decisions and dancing is for performers and an audience is there to watch but the beautiful thing about country and sing is that there's no line between you know performers and audience on more i hope it's something that becomes more popular i think events like yours are aware due to to show the community that there is this great new little dance going on every week and i hope it inspires people to come to come join us every wednesday i have to come here otherwise i feel have a great time you know but beyond just dancing and good exercise i was just blown away by the idea of how people thought it was so important in their lives and i think that's i think it's partly the music that just pulls t you're sharing this music you're sharing this joy and you as as they really said you know you go down the line and you just you can't help but smile sometimes of laughing it's just you know if it is this and sort of spiritual you stressed earlier that it's the princeton country dancers and contra dancing is just part of the cut princeton country dancers can you explain that sure i mean contra dancing is our major focus as i said we have five dances a month with con what's called ritual dancing which is a little more esoteric but we have a family dance which only happens with five or six times of your it's on a sunday afternoon and that works for three year olds and up three year olds absolutely really yes how many people do  doing that how many children we got quite a few people who because you know parents come and grandparents come and older siblings come as well so you get i mean we have thirty or forty people sometimes of those dances and and i should also mention that you know as i said we have live music every every week but we also have once a month we have a pick up band and our pick a band as i described to how we dance with all the different instruments and we have usually twenty people show up for a pick of bands and we are open to anyone the ability any instrument we provide the music and if you're just a beginner you don't have to get a mike but we encourage people to come out for that and there's and that that the family then that's always a pick up and what do you when you say pick up  you mean just anybody can just join any join the band all the all the all the musicians common whatever instrument they just go together you know exactly that sounds like it could be a book discordant notes well i don't it's like the surprised too because there's dancing and whole alaska there's no water they said they said forty nine states but not south dakota well it's not a very populated state so you have to have you know some people out there i also read i thought this was interesting that henry ford was really into country dancing yes and he wanted to get a caller or somebody to start it from and in massachusetts and he was under contract he wanted to bring him  o dancing out to michigan and he this gentleman was under contract so we bought the inn and then you know that this man had a contract with and so that he could bring the man out to michigan to start it so henry ford you know from ford started ford motor company so a lot of people apparently knew about it but i'm surprised i think i'm well read but i'm surprised i've never heard of it and i mean to dancing i do a lot of time today and it's it seems to be a well kept secret but  would like to let the world know about that and another thing i want to say about beginners the so many times i will try to encourage friends acquaintances to try it and they say oh no i'm not a dancer and i've got two left feet so you're the one that's it this is for you if you're not a dancer and you go to a feed try to contradict my wife always says that contraband thing is dancing for the people ninety five percent of people can do this now what about people who do a lot of dancing would they be interested in this or not you know people who do ballroom dancing people who do rock n roll people you know do all that do you think you think they would find an interest here to the ballet dance yeah i mean i think it's i i find it to be delightful i mean it's such an when you think about how structured so many of those dances can be it's such a release to be able to dance and interact with people in a way that isn't you know so individualistic and perfectionistic and i know like oh well it's just as well because we unfortunately right are running out of time and i'd like to thank both of you guys for coming here to let us know about the princeton country dancers and contra dancing or other quick point sure for people want to try this out your first dance is free your second dance is free not a lot to lose you come try to go it is expensive after that we charge ten dollars on a wednesday eleven dollars on a saturday we have a reduced were between five and ten or eleven hey what you want five dollars for students limited income you can pay five bucks six seven whatever you can afford thank you very much for being here i'm steve guggenheim and this is contra dancing with  princeton country dancers