Michael Dyck's Contradance Index

... celebrating 12 years of indexing ...

(Wondering what contradance is? Try this set of links.)


Last updated 2009 June 1: 8670 records, 6095 distinct titles.

Title
Author

Recent updates:
Mar 1 wMcKenzie Previously unknown dance identified ("M.A.D. About Dancing").
Mar 1 wMrosko Tweak URL.
Mar 1 wPage 1 dance added ("Square Deal").
Mar 1 wRavitz 1 dance added ("Swing Fever").
Mar 1 wdeJesus Index Sargon de Jesus' site (5 dances).
Mar 1 wGraham Index Wendy Graham's site (2 dances).
Mar 1 wSouthard Index Jon Southard's site (14 dances). [Thanks to Cary Ravitz for links to the last three sites!]
May 1 wDalsemer 1 dance added ("Intergenerational Reel").
May 1 wFoster 3 dances withdrawn ("The Geud Contra of Ballangigh", "Pieces of Eight", "The Three Swing Circus"), 8 dances added ("Double Trouble", "Flirty Again", "The Happy Meeting", "Heatwave", "Rory O'Hey", "Rang Tang Contra", "Rang Tang Mixer", "Another Safe Production").
May 1 wPage 2 dances added ("Waiting in the Swings", "Just Elegance").
May 1 wSmuklerD 1 dance added ("Toronto Tempest").
May 1 wTepfer 1 dance added ("Love Thy Neighbor").
May 1 wTurner 1 dance added ("Third Time Lucky").
May 1 wWeiler 1 dance added ("Earl & Squirrel").
May 1 wWidmer 1 dance added ("David K's Reel").
June 1 wCrane 1 dance added ("On the Danforth").
June 1 wMohr Slight change of URL.
June 1 wCubitt Index Geoff Cubitt's site (19 dances). [Thanks to Cary Ravitz for the link.]


My goal for this web site is to index every contra dance ever published. Moreover, I intend to include any other country dances that are published alongside contras. By "published", I mean in a book, booklet, newsletter, or on the World-Wide Web.

I'm not trying to index every publication, just the ones that have appeared since 1953. (If you know of any I'm missing, please let me know!) I chose that cutoff because "The Contra Dance Book" by Rickey Holden "is a compilation of all the contra and progressive circle dances which have appeared in readily available American literature between 1850 and 1953." So by indexing that book (CDBH), I'm claiming to cover all the contras published up to 1953.

For each dance, I have the following info:

Publication Info
This consists of a book (or newsletter) identifier and a page number (or dance number, if they're numbered). Eventually, I'll have the full publication info somewhere.
Dance Title
Pretty straightforward.
Authorship
Usually this is a single author, but sometimes it's more than one, either working together or one adapting the other.
Formation
I've let myself be a bit cryptic on this.
  • Lm = "longways for as many as will"
  • Cm = "circular for as many as will"
  • L = "longways fixed set"
  • C = "circular fixed set"
And then numbers defining the composition of each (minor) set, and then optional stuff indicating whether each couple is proper or improper, and whether it's a mixer.

Note that I do not include the figures of the dances. If you're looking for on-line country dance descriptions, check my list of sources for codes that begin with 'w'.


And now, the indexes:

My list of sources, the codes I use to denote them, and my raw data files are all available here.


Website by Michael Dyck, jmdyck@ibiblio.org

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