Push-Pull

Last night I sat out and watched a whole evening of English Country dances -- and suddenly I realized what English callers and dancers (and American callers) need to know about teaching Contras to English dancers.

English Country dances are smooth flowing, you glide from place to place with your partner, with a neighbor. You are moving somewhere together, but you are never “pushing or pulling” anyone. That is not polite. That is, well, pushy.

An English country dance is all circles, stars, cast, alaman. You invert the line, do a morris hey, gypsy. You touch hands, fall back, balance forward.

American contras are, take two hands with each other, balance forward (make sure there is tension!), balance back, catapult into a vigorous, buzz step swing. Roll to swap -- which means, your right hand (man) tugs on her left hand as you propel her into your space and you propel yourself into her place.

I’ve always known American dances are push-pull dances, but I’ve never realized how little push-pull there is in English dances. It is rude to push & pull, an English dancer would say. It is essential to push & pull, an American contra dancer would say.

One could almost generalize about a country and its people. Americans are pushy, they look you in the eye for too long. They are too direct, too vigorous. They do things too quickly. English people are more demure, less direct. They don’t like to stare; they don’t like to run around like headless chickens.

Dance forms do grow out of a culture. This is not meant to be a condemnation or an accusation. One could say one group is too pushy, too direct -- or that the other group is slow, effeminate, prissy. The point is not to condemn, but to understand, and the understanding of differences (not superior or inferior traits) should lead to an understanding of what needs to be taught.

So what needs to be taught to English dancers who wish to dance “American Contras” is that this American dance form contains a great many moves where tension, tugging, is the norm. Perhaps one move can summarize the situation.

In Gene Hubert’s “Sarah’s Journey,” twice within the dance, two people “along the line” box the gnat and then one of them goes across the set and swings the person on the other side of the set. My wife was at C# and she was executing the move the “American” way. At the end of the box the gnat she rocked back and pulled (or tugged) the man to help propel him across the set. The English man got quite angry (shirty a Brit would say). “Don’t do that,” he said. “I know where I’m going,” he said.

Yes, yes, yes, but he doesn’t understand American contras. One shouldn’t yank his arm out of its socket (there can be too much push & pull), but the essence of American contras is assisted movement. Even in so simple a move as circle left (or right), an American caller would say that your leading arm “pushes”; your trailing arm “pulls.” An English caller would never dream of explaining a circle movement in quite that way.

I could go through almost every move in a contra dance and explain the subtle differences between how this move is done in contra dances & how this move is done in English country dances. One small example springs to mind: the way American couples swing. There is such a tendency to lean back as we whirl around like mad whirling dervishes, that many male dancers in America end up with tennis elbow, or Carpal tunnel syndrome. You hardly ever see English dancers with bandages on their arms. At the end of a week-long American dance camp, sometimes the dancers look like the walking wounded after a battle: half the dancers are bandaged-up. All that is missing is crutches, amputees.

I do need to give a few more examples of what differences exist, what needs to be taught to an English dancer.

My wife is quite disconcerted when, in a right and left through, the men do not wrap their right hand around the lady (behind her back) and assist her into place. When they do not, she finds she is often late for the next move. Again there are many explanations for why they might not choose to wrap an arm around. Wrapping an arm around is getting too close, it is too intimate. Wrapping an arm around is pushy -- you are moving-shoving her into place. English (and Scottish) dancers are used to an “open right and left through” -- which is lovely, flowing -- but leisurely. A caller needs to teach the need, in contras, to wrap your arm around her back to speed up the process.

And exactly the same is true of a cast off. Again, English dancers don’t tend to get up-close and personal, they don’t wrap their arm behind to assist and make sure the move is tight, quick. Of course they sometimes “elbow-assist” which also speeds up the movement, decreases the arc, but they seldom wrap an arm behind.

One should be sensitive to cultural differences. It isn’t essential in a cast off -- especially a same-sex cast off -- that the two people need to be wrapped around each other, but it is essential to cut down the arc, keep the move quick, efficient.

Let me add to the push-pull nature of contra dances the concept of catching. In a ladies chain, an American lady often chooses to twirl. Notice, I said “chooses.” To “corkscrew” the lady into twirling is to take the push-pull concept into the realm of bullying. One can take contra-concepts too far. After the lady twirls, it is essential that the man’s right hand be there to catch her left hand so that she doesn’t fly out into space.

The concept of catching a hand is particularly crucial in the move we label “as in Rory O Moore.” After the twirl in Rory, both people MUST catch each other’s hand -- to stop the twirling motions.

Once I realized the push-pull nature of contras I realized how it animates all the flourishes contra dancers put into dancing. For the twirls, couples often palm-push off. This is true in contra corners, or when two people alaman and then turn away from each other to swing, or when two people meet in the center during a hey. In all these cases, it is an assisted twirl: you need the resistance of the other person’s palm to start you into your spin-twirl.

So, basically, contras are push-pull dances. To fully enjoy what contras have to offer there must be some tension between opposing arms. Such tension should not be carried over into English country dances which are flowing, fluid, largely free of tension.

Every dance form has something to offer dancers, and to truly enjoy the dance form one must be at least (subconsciously) aware of what is unique and precious about that dance form.