CONTRA DANCING

No fancy footwork or outfits are required for contra dancing.

Nearly 40 people turned out Friday night to do a kind of dancing few people know how to do.

Contra dancing is similar to square dancing, but the dancers progress down long lines with their partners instead of dancing in squares.

The contra dance at Southeast's Parker Dance Studio was put on by Cape Friends of Old Time Music and Dance. The group plans to hold a dance each month. The next contra dance is planned for Feb. 28.

The dancers represented all ages groups from teen-agers to 70-year-olds. But most of the folks in attendance were middle-aged and older.

Bob Casteel of Jackson went to Friday's dance and enjoyed himself. "If it wasn't fun I wouldn't do it," he said.

"I square dance and the two dances kind of go hand in hand, but I like the live band at contra dances," Casteel said.

Some people wore country outfits for the dance, but casual attire is standard for a contra dance.

The dances are easy to learn. Dancers stand in a long line with their partner in a long line across from them. When the music starts the dance partners will perform the figures called by the caller.

Most of these figures are easy but some can be more difficult.

The dancers begin to progress down the line changing places with the couple next to them. Now the same figures will be performed with the new couple. The dancers continue this down the line.

Little footwork is required but a brisk walking step is.

Joe Surdyk, a caller from Carbondale, Ill, said he will walk the dancers through each dance he is about to call two times so that everyone knows what they are doing.

Once the dancers are ready, the musicians give the caller four beats. Surdyk then makes the first call, asking for a dos-a-dos.

"After three or four times through the song, I can stop calling because the dancers know what's next," Surdyk said.

The caller will cue the musicians for the last time through.

The participants liked both the dancing and the people involved.

"This was my first time to contra dance and I am having a lot of fun," Jennifer Miederhoff of Paducah, Ky., said.

"Most people you associate with at contra dances are good people," Casteel said. "It's fun and it's not too hard to learn and it's good exercise too."

The reels, jigs, hornpipes and waltzes of contra dancing are played on the guitar, fiddle and the old-time banjo. Friday's dance treated the dancers to mostly reels and hornpipes played by Ann Drake on fiddle, Max Drake on guitar and old-time banjo, and Kelley Sims on guitar.

Surdyk says contra dance music is a lot like bluegrass, but anthropologist Max Drake added that bluegrass was created from contra dance music.

"Most of the tunes are 400-500 years old and are of English, Scottish, Irish and French origin," he said.