No heat in the barn except maybe a gas blower. In spite of all that, we always have a good time. We have found for many of the dances we play for, public or private, that Barn Dance is a good name for what we do. Many times we do not have any duple progressive contras, or any square dances on the program. Saying it is a contra dance or a square dance is not honest advertising for an evening of various and sundry set reels, Portland Fancy, Paul Jones, waltzes and polkas.
Barn dance covers the bases pretty well, no matter where the dance is held.
Except in a kitchen. A real contra dance is for folks who take it seriously and do just contra dances, some of them difficult. A generic contra or square dance has Virginia reels. That's what we want, Virginia reels like when I was a kid. We had a woman here last year, she must have been a real contra dance caller, spent all her time teaching us stuff, when we just wanted to clap our hands and stamp our feet and holler and have a good time.