Michael Dyck's Contradance Index

... indexing contradances since 1996 ...

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


Last updated 2013 May 21: 10314 records, 7159 distinct titles.

Title
Author

Recent updates:

Feb 02 wCoffman 17 dances added ("Adam's Apple", "Adam's Dance", "Ain't Dancing Grand?", "Black Swan", "Bob & Martha's Excellent Adventure", "Cards on the Table", "Happy Wife Happy Life", "Hey Gomer, Hey Goober", "Hinton's Circle of Love", "Inside Out", "Jumping Joe Felsen", "Ladybug", "Rachel's Refulgent Rumination", "Salad Days", "Star Crossed", "Under the Table", "Was Then and Is Now").
Feb 02 wDVA 5 dances added ("Becketize the Baby", "Bee in Her Bonnet", "Hand to Hand", "Happy Hare", "Tutti Fruiti").
Feb 02 wFabry Index "Mariah Fabry's Dances" (5 dances).
Feb 02 wGoodyearPrograms 3 dances added ("Down but not out", "Judah Jig", "3, 33-33").
Feb 02 wHemphill 2 dances changed ("Hey-ja Vu", "Wave to your Neighbor"); 5 dances added ("Beneath the Stars", "The Big Bicep", "Dalliance", "Dalliance in the Deli", "Wave Goodby").
Feb 02 wPage 3 dances added ("Catch of the Day", "Victory Rose", "Gate Expectations").
Feb 02 wRavitz 1 dance changed ("Presto Petronella A"); 4 dances added ("Fiddlers' Fling", "Presto Petronella B", "Another Slice", "Cheat Lake Gypsies").
Feb 02 wRosenP Change code from "Rosen" to "RosenP".
Feb 02 wRosenS Index "Sue Rosen's Dances" (22 dances).
Feb 02 wWatson 1 dance changed ("Venus and Mars Variation").
Feb 03 wKing Index "Jonathan King's collection" (81 dances).
Mar 02 wPark Index "Frederick Park's Country Dances" (Thanks to Chris Page for typing it in!) (7 dances).
Mar 02 wRPDLW_2011 Index "Syllabus of the 24th Annual Ralph Page Dance Legacy Weekend" by David Smukler and Nils Fredland (80 dances). (Thanks to Chris Page for analysis and typing!)
Mar 26 wSuchenski Index "Bryan Suchenski's Contra Dances" (2 dances).
Mar 26 wTurner Change URL (Thanks to Laurie Pietravalle for the new link!).
May 20 wCoffman 1 dance changed ("Jumping Joe Felsen"); 15 dances added ("Bad Hair Day", "Cross Purposes", "Grey Pants", "Hinton's Hint", "In the Ballpark", "In the Money", "Keep a Lid on It", "Lazy Man I Won't Maintain", "Mandible Joe Johnston", "Off Balance", "One Up the Sleeve", "Pretty Boy", "Southpaw", "Sweet Potato Pie", "Sweet Potatoes").
May 20 wDVA 4 dances added ("Good Friday", "Judy's Joy", "Rollin' with Rohde", "The Big Bicep").
May 20 wDalsemer 1 dance added ("Another Wavy Line").
May 20 wFoster 3 dances added ("All Chain", "Rotunda", "The Women's Turn").
May 20 wGraham 3 dances added ("Paper Plate #1: The Melt Up, 1998", "Blue Lemonade", "Old Dry Frye's Ramble").
May 20 wHemphill 13 dances added ("And Away We Go", "THe Easily Led Lad", "Kimmswick Reunion", "The Long and Short of It", "The Martyred Monk", "May the 5th Be With You", "My Hungarian Gypsy Star", "Office Mayhem", "Rick O'shay's Proper Hey", "Rollin With Rohde", "Third Base", "Tornado", "Wave Goodby to Winter").
May 20 wKing 1 dance added ("Sharon of the Green Contra").
May 20 wKrackau 3 dances added ("Double Hey Contra", "Miss Brown's Reel", "Shacklette's Triplet").
May 20 wMissouri 27 dances removed ("Easier than Pie", "Flip a Coin", "The Millwheel", "Mountain Ridge", "Palindrome", "Wandering Gypsies", "Caped Crusader", "Gypsy Camp", "Ionia Breakout", "Jefferson & Liberty", "Jefferson's Remorse", "Jefferson Gone Wild", "Mage Up A Creek", "Star Hey Night", "Wagon Wheel", "Back on the Interstate", "Exit 33", "Just Another Whim", "Earthshine Reel", "Orbiting Gypsies", "The Courtesy Fling", "The Bothersome Bug Becket", "Huru's Reel", "Second Star", "Heat Wave", "John Birch Reel", "Hey your Corner"); 2 dances added ("Kimmswick Diamonds", "Beauty and the Bees").
May 20 wOrmand_c 1 dance added ("West By Midwest").
May 20 wRavitz 1 dance removed ("Altered State"); 5 dances added ("dance experiment (modified)", "Decade", "Into the DMZ", "Martha's Breakup Breakdown", "Parmesan").
May 21 DAW6 Changed the code from "DAW" to "DAW6".
May 21 DAW8 Index "Dance A While [8th edition]" by Jane A. Harris, Anne M. Pittman, Marlys S. Waller, Cathy L. Dark (31 dances). (Thanks to Chris Page for entering the data!)
May 21 RR Index ""Rhonda's Romance" & Other Modern Contra Dances" by Michael Barraclough (24 dances).
May 21 wSmuklerM Change URL.

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. 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'.

Here's my to-do list, including links to lots more websites containing contra dances that I haven't indexed yet.


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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