Sunday, November 23, 2003

New Dancers

The contradance last night was excellent. Moving Cloud is always a wonderful band to dance to and particular highlights of the evening included completely changing the character of Miss Monahan's reel by piling in all sorts of minor chords, and playing one of my very favorite waltzes at the end: Far Away, with its beautiful hemiola. Eric also called some fun new moves, like a grand right and left, doubled up with your partner (using stars instead of alemandes). But I was particularly happy last night to meet three new dancers, two of whom are Stanford grad students. They've all done contra before but are new to the area. I love seeing more people in my general age group show up at contras, and they're all really nice people. I'm going to try to get them sucked into various other dances, too.

For some reason, I've noticed recently that I really enjoy meeting new dancers. I like telling them about all the dance options around here, dancing with them, introducing them to people, and just generally making sure they get at least one friendly welcome to the community. I was wondering last night, though, about how I come across to people who meet me that way. I think I probably seem to be a lot more extroverted, out-going and talkative than I actually am. It's not like I'm normally anti-social, but "taking care" of newbies just motivates me to put out more of an effort. It's also an easier sort of interaction for me because I know I have a lot to offer, telling them about various dances or classes or whatever. So I'm okay with it, even with people I haven't met before.

Anyway, if you run into anyone else who wants to get into dancing, send them my way.

No comments: