InformationWeek: The Business Value of Technology

January 29, 2001

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Documentation engineer was reluctant at first, but now he can't stop dancing

By Sandra Swanson

To find out more about contra dancing:

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hen Les Tayrose tells people about his favorite pastime, they usually give him quizzical looks and ask if he wears army fatigues. That's because his preferred weekend entertainment is contra dancing. "It has nothing to do with South American guerrillas," says Tayrose, a senior documentation engineer at Relativity Technologies in Cary, N.C. Think square dancing, not Ollie North.

Contra dancing is a folk dance, a combination of square dancing and line dancing that features jigs and reels, accompanied by Scottish-Irish hornpipes and fiddles. Tayrose had his first experience with contra dancing three years ago when a co-worker invited him out one Saturday as an antidote for Tayrose's recent painful breakup. He agreed--reluctantly. "I told him I'm not a dancer. I said, 'I'm going, but don't expect me to have fun.'"

Tayrose ended up dancing for three hours. "I caught the contra bug," he says. Six weeks later, he signed up for a week-end contra dance event in Charlottesville, Va., with 200 or so attendees. "The people there said I was either brave or crazy," says Tayrose, because he had been to only three evening dances.

Most people don't attend these weekend events un-til they've been dancing for several months, he says.

One appealing aspect for newcomers: Contra is a called dance. That means the caller provides about 15 minutes of instruction before the dance begins, then provides some direction for participants during the dance as well.

Tayrose also appreciates the social dynamic: Mingle, mingle, mingle. "It's a nonpartner dance, so you don't have to go to a dance with someone." Forget the days in the high school gym where boys and girls stayed in opposite corners and crossed the room as if they were crossing enemy lines. Contra dancing doesn't permit wallflowers--it's an equal-opportunity activity. Women are comfortable asking men to dance, Tayrose says.

The wardrobe for con-tra dancing is low-maintenance--most folks wear street clothes, Tayrose says. Dancing also provides a welcome change of pace from sitting all day, he says, and offers great stress relief from his job.

However, there's always potential for stress when one is dancing in public, and the choreography is more complex than the Chicken Dance. Tayrose recalls being at one fest where a woman asked him to dance. Later, the emcee called the fest organizers to the center of the floor--and Tayrose's partner was one of them. The handful of organizers were being honored with a special waltz, and a group of about 300 people had gathered to watch. One problem: Tayrose had no idea how to waltz. "I started to panic." Fortunately, his partner helped him by leading.

Contra dancing is said to have originated in the British Isles. The term began as "country dance," was dubbed contredans by the French (translation: opposites dance), and has evolved into contra dance in the United States.

Contra dancing might lack the libidinous gyrations of the salsa craze, but that doesn't mean it's for fuddy-duddies. "A big part of contra dancing is flirting," Tayrose says. Dancers can flirt with a dozen partners during the event and not see them again for the rest of the night. "It's a nice way to socialize without having any kind of expectation," he says.

What's more, the contra dancing community welcomes newbies, Tayrose says. If you don't know how to dance, there are plenty of folks willing to teach you. "They're very forgiving," he says. "Even experienced dancers make mistakes. They just laugh it off and move on."

That turned out to be an effective approach for Tayrose. At a contra dance last February, he messed up the steps with one of his partners and was so flustered he decided not to ask her to dance again: "I figured she wouldn't want to." Wrong. The woman asked a mutual acquaintance for his number, and now they're dating. Says Tayrose: "She thought it was great the way I handled my embarrassment--I laughed."

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