Resources and References for Contra Dance / Contradance

\ Resources and References for Contra Dance / Contradance

Contra Dance / Contradance
Resources, Dance Compositions, Indices, and the like

This page is devoted to listing resources about contra dances ranging from dance compositions to e-mail groups, to essays to miscellaneous sites. URLs and e-mail addresses are listed when available. New entries, additional information, and changes in information are always welcome. Links to other pages in the www.contradancelinks.com web site are listed at the bottom of the page.

New links are simply new to me, not necessarily new to the World Wide Web. Change in URL means that a link has changed its WWW address or URL.

Dance Compositions

Greg Hopkins has produced a graphical contra dance designer. Warning: it only works with Internet Explorer. Way cool
The Contra/Country Dance Markup Language Project is intended to be a method of describing a contra dance (or other, similarly structured, folk dances) in a form that can be read and written by both humans and machines.
Michael Dyck is working to index every contra dance ever published. You can find information on over 5700 dances at his site.
Hugh Stewart has compiled descriptions of over 140 contra dances by various authors plus links to lists of other dance compositions.
Russell Owen and Michael Richardson maintain the database known as American Country Dances On Line which contains over 250 dances by diverse composers.
David's Dance Caller's Home Page is a web site is a forum for contra and square dance callers to share dances they have adapted or created. It includes dances by Keith Hunt, Peter Jorgensen. Amy Kahn, Bob Nicholson and David Smukler.
CONNtra Dances provides information about contras created by Connecticut Callers.
Kiran Wagle's site includes a page of dances by numerous authors.
An American Ballroom Companion presents a collection of over two hundred social dance manuals, written between (c.1490) and 1929, at the Library of Congress.
The University of New Hampshire Library has an index to dances printed in Ralph Page's Northern Junket as part of its digitized collection of the newsletter.
While not contras, Bill Martin's A Look at Southern Squares has plenty of information about this close relative to contra dances.
Jonathan Sivier, researching the manuscripts of the New Harmony Community in Indiana and Pennsylvania, writes about the dances contained in a volume called "Community Dances, 1826" which includes quadrilles or cotillions and longways set dances.
William Watson has compiled a list of dance titles and publications. You'll need to go to the sources to get the actual compositions.
Bob Archer includes descriptions of three of his dance compositions.
Melanie Axel-Lute has about three dozen dances, labeled as appetizers, main courses, and specialties, on her site.
Clark Baker includes one of his compositions on his site.
Jacob Bloom supplies information about some of his dances.
Mike Boerschig calls from Cincinnati, Ohio and lists the elements of five of his dances on this page.
Ed Bugel has included twelve of his dance sequences on his web site.
Donna Calhoun presents six of her dances.
Tom Calwell and Myra Hirschberg have fifteen dance compositions, both composed solo and as a duo on their site.
Seattle area caller Alan Cheetham lists nine of his dances.
Contra dances by Thomas W. Christopher, from Chicago, includes 5 dances.
Dave Colestock includes eighteen of his compositions on his web site.
Among his list of links, Eric Conrad includes information on five dances that he wrote.
Ted Crane provides the specifics for more than four dozen of his dances.
Bob Dalsemer's Dance Compositions spotlights about 30 dances, including contras and squares, by this North Carolina dancer.
The folks from Dancing for Busy People list ten dances by various authors, known and unknown.
Sue Dupré lists three of her dances with more to come.
Erik Erhardt lists one of his dances.
Leonard Ellis has information about more than a dozen of his dances.
Heiner Fischle has written several dances and a number of essays about contra dancing.
Bob Frederking's aka "Dr. Bob's" Random Contra Generator is back in business.
Alex Funk provides a dozen of his compositions.
Grant Goodyear has fourteen dance compositions on his site.
Rich Goss includes more than a dozen of his works at his site.
A Barn Dance Repertoire from Thomas Green, a dancer from England is a basic list of simple dances for barn dances, also known as English-style ceilidhs. He set it up partly for other beginning callers, partly as a useful repository for himself. Not quite contras, but a close relative, and therefore useful for interested parties. Another list that he provides sorts the dances by type of dance (Longways (English, American), Squares, Big Circles, etc.).
Among the pages at their site, the Contradancers of Hawaii have a list of dance compositions and include MIDI and "abc" files for each dance. In addition, they provide a list of links for other composition sites.
Erik Hoffman has posted at least six of the dances he has composed. Some of them appear as part of the excerpts of the books he has written.
Colin Hume has instructions for a wide variety of his dances from contras to 5-couple to circles to squares.
Five of Keith Hunt's dances are shown on the Syracuse web site.
Peter Jorgensen, one of the founders of the Syracuse contra dance, has two of his dances on the Syracuse site.
Syracuse caller Amy Kahn has two of her dance compositions listed on the Syracuse Country Dancers web site.
Jeff Kaufman has nine of his dances listed on his site along with links to dances composed by others. New entry (April 20, 2008)
David Kaynor is not sure whether the seven dances listed on his web site qualify as compositions, but check them out anyway.
David Kirchner has a list of about a dozen different dances that he has composed.
Gary Knox has information about eight of his dances, some of them contras, on his web site.
Roberta Koguts has seven of her dance compositions on two different pages (look for "More Dances").
Tom Lehmann, of the SF Bay area, lists 28 of his dances.
David Mandelberg has the details on 13 dances that he has written.
Karen Missavage includes several of her dance compositions on her site. Change in URL (March 22, 2008)
Rick Mohr, a caller and musician in Massachusetts, includes the steps for more than three dozen of his dances on his page.
On her Dance-a-Runi site, Jo Mortland includes five of her contra dances and square dances.
As part of her web site Linda S. Mrosko includes 16 of her dance compositions.
John Nance of the Charlotte Dance Gypsies includes more than twenty of his dance compositions on this page. Change in URL (March 22, 2008)
Bob Nicholson has eight of his dances listed on the Syracuse Country Dancers web site.
Devin Nordberg includes three of his contras from his book, 21st Century Contras, on his web site.
Bill Olson's Dance Compositions focuses on about 50 of the Maine dancer's creations. Change in URL (March 5, 2008)
Carol Ormand is a caller in Ohio and includes some dance compositions on her page.
While William Palmer's Pocket Playford is a listing of the English country dances, that style and contra are close relatives and folks studying dance compositions and/or interested in English country dancing will find this to be a fruitful site. Richard Morgan maintains the site for The Round in England.
David Smuckler has a list of dances influenced by the classic, Petronella.
Joseph Pimental includes four of his dance compositions on his web site.
Bill Pope has 12 of his dances, including one that needs a name, at his site.
Elinor Preston includes three of her dances on her web site.
Along with his work on web pages, Cary Ravitz is a caller and dance composer. He includes about 80 dance compositions at his site.
Caller and musician Paul Rosen lists seven of his dances on his web site.
Seven of Merri Rudd's dances are available.
Mike Schuh supplies information about three of his dances.
While it is an English Country Dance Archive, Brian Scowcroft's dances may be relevant for some contra dances.
Jonathan Sivier includes information about 9 of his dance compositions.
David Smuckler provides information about more than 70 of his dances.
Micah Smukler has seven of his dances on the web. Page appears gone (August 23, 2007)
Jeff Spero provides information about some of his dances and the collection of dances composed by callers from Southern California, "(southern) California Twirls".
Clint Sprott's Contra Dance Machine is a program that writes random contra dances. It is under development, and so many of the dances will not work. You may be able to fix them by making suitable changes.
Contra Dances by Marilee Standifer highlights six dances by the Wisconsin composer.
Seth Tepfer has information for more than three dozen of his dances on his page.
Don Theyken lists eight of his dances.
UK caller John Turner lists his American contras on his web site.
William Watson lists nine of his dances.
Portland, Oregon caller Erik Weberg includes 10 of his dances on his web site.
Mark T. Widmer's pages include 5 of his dances.
Reine Wonite calls from northern Virginia and includes about a dozen dances on her page.
Eric Zorn lists several of his contras along with squares and circle mixers.

Dance Music

John Chambers has a collection of abc music (alternate site). From Chris Walshaw's site: ""abc" is a language designed to notate tunes in an ascii format. It was designed primarily for folk and traditional tunes of Western European origin (such as Irish, English and Scottish) which can be written on one stave in standard classical notation. However, it is extendible to many other types of music. Since its introduction at the end of 1991 it has become very popular and there now exist several PC and UNIX based tools which can read abc notation and either process it into staff notation or play it through the speakers of a computer." Chamber's collection includes notations for a number of pieces used for contra dances.
Lisa Sieverts has posted several reviews of contra music CDs.
The Contradancers of Hawaii include a page of Sources of traditional music on the Webat their site.
For some words of advice to musicians playing music at dances, try these notes by Eric Foxley.
Matt McConeghy has produced a page of Rhode Island and southeastern Mass contra music and other varieties of traditional music.
Along the River is an exciting collection of reels, jigs, waltzes, and other dance tunes written in the last twenty-five years by musicians of the Connecticut River Valley of western Massachusetts and southern Vermont and is edited by Susan F. Conger. A companion CD was released at the end of 2000.
Great Meadow Music has a catalog of contra dance music, specializing in New England Contra Music, on CDs.
Contracopia is where you can find contra dance music, CD's, and tapes from all over the country. Some music is available for listening on Real Audio or MP2 formats. They are based in Vermont.
The Rambles Celtic music site includes information and reviews of Celtic music, which, as you might expect, adjoins the overall contra dance music culture.
Ryan Thomson reviews music CDs that may or may not be limited to music to dance to.
The Slowplayers has information about a number of Slow Play Seisiúns across the country plus files to help you learn the tunes.
Green Man Review covers the roots and branches of folk and traditional music including works by various contra dance bands and musicians.
CONNtra CONNection has a page of 91 tunes by Connecticut musicans from a book called The Connecticut Sound.
The BBC has a Virtual Session web site with help from a number of prominent players from the UK whom you can play along with.
Greg Anderson keeps track of the tunes that he has composed at various times.
Jon Weinberg, of Wild Card, has several workshop handouts that are helpful for dulcimer players playing contra dance music and waltzes.
The University of Aberdeen has a site devoted to the work of James Scott (J. Scott or J. S.) Skinner, aka the "Strathspey King" whose tunes are used at numerous dances.
Michael Mendelson has sheet music for about three dozen tunes which he has written.
Paul Giblitz has posted information on 160 of his tunes for download as PDF, Midi and ABC files.
Lesley Nelson has created a site about Turlough O'Carolan, an Irish composer for the harp in the 17th and 18th centuries whose compositions are played at contra dances.
Eric Anderson has a page containing examples of medleys and what works OR doesn't work with what.
Eric Anderson includes notes on Cathie Whitesides' 2000 Workshop on Northern Fiddle Tunes for contra dancing.
Jane Keefer continues to update her Folk Music - An Index to Recorded Resources which is a valuable resource for tracking down tune titles, bands, and recordings, especially for contra dance musicians looking for information about tunes from the old-time music genre.
Alan Ng's exhaustive Irish Traditional Music Tune Index can help you track down recordings and tune information for the Irish part of the contra dance music repertoire.
The Session takes a more wiki approach to a Celtic tune database with listings of recordings and tunes and plenty of discussion from its members.
Archives of the list serve fiddle-l are available and searchable (if you are a member). Of course, the list serve covers a wide range of topics, but contra dancing comes up every once and a while.
Greg Anderson provides information about at least 40 of his tunes.
Pam Weeks rotates the sheet music for about three dozen of her tunes.
Rick Mohr includes some of his musical compositions on his web site.
David DiGiuseppe has sheet music for 14 of this tune compositions.
Ethan Hazzard-Watkins lists some of his tunes along with information about his tune book on his web site.
There's a start to a list of contra dance music on CDs.
Robert Cox hosts a biweekly radio show and podcast called Contracast featuring contra dance music.
Richard Robinson's Tunebook is a collection of traditional tunes, and new tunes in traditional styles. Scots tunes, Irish tunes, Scandinavian, French, Balkan and more.
Hetzler's Fake Book has MIDI files and/or sheet music for approximately 312 tunes.
Otter's fiddle site includes a list of sites that include fiddle music with abc files, sound files, notation files, and lyrics.
Mickey Koth has developed an excellent web bibliography of tune collections on the Internet. I'll be eliminating any duplicates from my list sometime in the near future.
The Contradancers of Hawaii Web site have about 32 Tunes in abc format.
Spuds, the house band for the Thursday night contra series in the Philadelphia area, provides plenty of help in learning tunes commonly played at contra dances.
Dave Marshall has information about the Irish fiddle tunes played at his local session at Irish Heather.
The New Mexico edition of Roaring Jelly has sheet music for many of the tunes that they play, in abc and pdf.
Good Parking, a UK Band, has a list of tunes that the band plays in pdf and abc format.
The Albuquerque Megaband has mp3 snippets of many of the tunes they play plus a tune list from 2000. (Tune list is a .pdf file)
The Lancaster Traditional Society's contra dance has built a Sheet Music Archive for traditional contra dance tunes.
Paul Fackler's tune collection specializes in transcriptions of more than 200 Cape Breton tunes.
The Slowplayers have compiled music sheets for more than 100 tunes (mostly Celtic) in various formats.
The Folk Guitar site has listings of Chords for a wide range of folk songs including instrumental tunes.
The Wandering Whistler has a large archive of music from various sources.
The Dallas Area Contra Bands web site has music for about 36 tunes.
The Grand River Folk Arts Society has some information about tunes (with chords) played at local jams.
The British Columbia Kitchen Party has some mp3's and notation for tunes plays at its sessions. Change of URL (March 22, 2008)
The Eugene, Oregon band, Amazon Creek, has published its repertoire in abc format.
Graham McDonald of Australia has posted a collection of Australian dance music including set tunes, mazurkas, polkas, schottiches, varsonvianas and waltzes. Change of URL (March 22, 2008)
Eric Foxley has a database of about 1200 folk melodies, mostly British & American. They mostly come from the repertoire over the years of Fred Folks Ceilidh Band, and are intended as music for dancing.
Andrew Kuntz's The Fiddler's Companion along with extensive notes about thousands of tunes, has tune information in abc format for many of them.
The Rum and Onions Band has sheet music in .tif and .gif formats for tunes which the band has played at various R&O concerts.
Peter Yarensky has included a variety of tunes here from many sources including the Wednesday night jam session in Durham, New Hampshire and by the Lamprey River Band with any degree of frequency. He has included background information as well.
While not specific to contra dance music, Fiddle Fork is an on-line fiddle community. New entry (May 4, 2008)
The Nashville Old-Time String Band Association has tune packages which includes notation, chords, lyrics (when available), and mp3 and midi files. New entry (May 10, 2008)
Martin Jenkins has a list of sites with printable music some of which may be of interest to contra dance musicians. New entry (May 10, 2008)
Folk Fiddle in Florida has chords for tunes played at the Orlando Wednesday night jam. (Word document) New entry (May 10, 2008)
David Kaynor has .gif files for tunes which he has composed. He also has abc and pdf files of a number of other tunes. New entry (May 10, 2008)
Rich Mohr has a half dozen of his tunes in abc and pdf format. New entry (May 10, 2008)
Larry Unger includes abd and pdf files for 10 of this tunes on his site. New entry (May 10, 2008)
The Cincinnati Open Band has files for the tunes that they play or are working on. New entry (May 10, 2008)
Paul Rosen has twenty of tunes posted on his web site in abc and standard notation. New entry (May 10, 2008)
The Big Round Band of Cambridge, England has a variety of tunes in a variety of formats including notations for bass players. New entry (May 10, 2008)
The folks at The Portland Collection have an extensive list of web sites of the composers who have tunes in their tune books. New entry (May 14, 2008)

Miscellaneous

Charles Roth has a page of dance icons that he used in creating the Ann Arbor (AACTMAD) site.
Noriko Takahashi in Japan has produced a fantastic page of animated square dance steps. Since many the steps are used in contradancing, this page can be quite helpful in learning some of the movements.
If you are looking for musical Instruments, accessories, recordings, books, and videos relevant to contradancing, Elderly Instruments is a good place to start.
Looking for recipes? Try Ted Crane's newsletter Folk Stuff for the occasional treat. For a list of cookie recipes used at the Rehoboth, MA dances, visit Contra Cookies.
The University of New Hampshire hosts the Library of Traditional Music & Dance as part of their special collections including papers of a number of individuals involved in contradance.
Folk Roots a/k/a Froots is a U.K. magazine covering roots, folk and world music. Given their extensive listings, there is enough crossover to include them.
The Lloyd Shaw Dance Archives, located in the Library of the University of Denver in Denver, Colorado, consist of books, periodicals, sound and picture recordings, callers' notes, dance camp syllabi, cue sheets, and special collections relating to square, round, contra, and other specialized forms of dance.
Dance Books Ltd. is an international centre for books, CDs, DVDs & videos and sheet music on all forms of dance.
Many of June Harman's paintings are illustrations of folk dance, including contra dance.
The Old-Time Herald is a regular publication that celebrates the love of old-time music -- grassroots or home-grown music and dance.
If you ever need a contra dance bumper sticker, Instant Attitudes may be of interest.
The Folk Times supplies information about a wide range of folk music (from baroque and Renaissance to country and bluegrass) and dance in New York, Vermont, and western Massachusetts.
Andrea Setzer has several short Quicktime/mpg movies of contradancing (from the VFW Hall in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Check out the text of A Man Without a Country for a mention of contra dancing (about the middle of the story).
For another literature quote that mentions contra dancing, check this section of Little Women.
The Dance-A-Runi store includes contra dance T-shirts showing some of the various moves in a contra dance as different runes.
In the United Kingdom, the Cotswold Music Supply has a decent amount of dance compositions and music for sale.
Strum Hollow features a contra dance T-shirt in its catalog.
Richard Albanese has produced several waltz videotapes. This is not the ballroom waltz, but the type of waltzing done at contra dances.
Annie's Contra Corner sells skirts and dresses that are great for (but not limited to) contra dancing.
For those who might end up at the business end of the sound board at a contra dance, the best starting point is Bob Mills' All Mixed Up which can be purchased at the Country Dance and Song Society. There is a supplement to the book and Andy Wilson has a few notes on sound reinforcement and Wes Maluk contributes his thoughts on sound. In addition to all that, Bob Mills has written about On-board mics. And there is a mailing list, the Contra Dance Sound Forum. Changes of URLs (March 22, 2008)
David Cottle outlines ten myths regarding sound systems in PA Mythology along with a few rules of thumb.
Australian Heritage Dance has information about Australian Bush, Colonial and Traditional Dances. New entry (March 27, 2008)
National Public Radio's "All Songs Considered" has included music from two contra dance CDs, "The Portland Collection Vol. 1" and the "The Portland Collection Vol. 2". New entry (April 21, 2008)
New Hampshire Public Radio featured an interview with noted musician and composer Bob McQuillen in this broadcast from February 2004. New entry (April 21, 2008)
WERU in Maine features the Belfast Flying Shoes dance series in a radio broadcast in 2007 (look for the link at the bottom of the page). New entry (April 21, 2008)
The Knoxville Country Dancers were featured as part of East Tennessee This Morning's program on February 1, 2008. For the video itself, you'll have to scroll the video menu on the right hand side of the page a number of times. New entry (April 21, 2008)
Judith Laura's 2003 poem called 'Contradance">. New entry (May 4, 2008)
Several people and organizations have compiled quotes about dance:
- Annabelle
- Jane Austen
- Bill Austin & Kathee Runo
- Peter Y. Chou
- Kathleen Cirioli
- Cyber-Nation
- Dancers in Motion
- Dancing with Words
- Rhod Davies
- Dreamland
- D Duncan
- Emily
- Patri Friedman
- Rhiannon Giddens
- Leslie Hyll; (my favorite place to start)
- Maria
- Scott and Kristy Nilsson
- Professor Tom
- Quote Garden
- Allan Terry and Frances Grimble
- Toronto Social Dance
- Yasmina
And there are the newsgroups:
- rec.folk-dancing.

Definitions and Explanations

Probably the fullest explanation, certainly the one that has the most links to it among all the contra dance pages in the world, is Gary Shapiro's What Is Contra Dance?
A Contra Dance Primer by Les Francey and Farrell Boyce of the Hamilton Country Dancers [Ontario, Canada] provides answers to some basic contra dance questions.
The Folk Project of New Jersey includes George V. Otto's Contra Dancing Explained.
Hugh Stewart has a brief description of What is Contra Dance at the Cambridge, England web site.
Jonathan Sivier's Introduction to Contra Dance is an adaptation of the New England Folk Festival Association's essay.
David Smukler and Mike Miller, from the Syracuse [New York] Country Dancers, include What is contradancing? at the Syracuse site.
Terms You Need to Know (& Understand) For English Country Dancing from the Country Dancers of New York [City} site provides descriptions of various moves in English Country Dancing. They many not be exactly the same as in contradancing, but still may provide some help.
Elements of English Country Dance from the book by the same name by Hugh Stewart, includes plenty of information on contra dance moves including the California Twirl.
Rob Lindauer What's Contra Dance? provides an answer to the question.
John Gustin supplies instructions on how to dance the Hambo, the Schottische, and the Polka, all of which are sometimes danced during an evening of contradancing.
Jim Battisson supplies A Glossary of Dance Terms, written for International folk dancers in Australia, many of which are used in contradancing.
Chip Hedler includes information on contra dance terms, basic figures, history, and manners in his It LOOKS like they're having fun, (but what the heck are they doing?) site.
Steven Nagy of the Hamilton (Ontario) Country Dancers has written Contraculture: An Introduction to Contradancing.
Sharon has a page of text, music, and photographs about her experience in learning to contra dance. The text provides a good introduction to what it is all about.
The Old-time Music & Dance Network has a variety of articles and lists of links on various elements of old-time music, contra dancing and related forms.
Marcia McKenzie explains the various forms of Traditional Community Dance.
The BBC tries to explain the basics of contra dance in a short article.
Larry Jennings presents Almost All You Need to Know to Enjoy a New England Style Dance.
Jonathan Sivier lists The Top Ten (plus) Things That Make a Good (Contra) Dancer.
Bob Peterson provides some guidance for first-timers, with Contra Dancing 101.
The Two Dog Waltz dance series lists some of the basic Contra Dance Steps and Moves pdf file Change of URL (June 9, 2007)
The Miami Valley Folk Dancers include a discussion from rec.folk-dancing about Why is it Called Contra Dance? from 1996.
Heiner Fischle has written an Introduction to Contra Dancing.
The Old-time Music and Dance Network has provides Old-Time Dance Introduction.
Sarah Fulton of the Friday night dance at Glen Echo, presents What is "Contra Dancing".
The Princeton Country Dancers provide Helpful Hints and Etiquette for Contra Dancers. Change of URL (March 22, 2008)
The Chattahoochee Country Dancers have their own version of What is Contra Dancing?.
The Old Farmers' Ball has Welcome to the Old Farmer's Ball - Dance Guidelines for beginners and experienced dancers. (pdf file)
Jennie Wakefield of the Harvest Moon Folk Society takes a try at What Is Contra Dance?.
The Mid-Missouri Traditional Dancers list, with photographs, some Common Dance Figures .Change of URL (March 22, 2008)
The Mid-Missouri Traditional Dancers provide some guidance with Tips for Beginners. Change of URL (March 22, 2008)
The Round Hill Country Dances in Greenwich, Connecticut have 10 Tips for Newcomers.
The Harvest Moon Folk Society presents Dance Tips for Newcomers.
The Cincinnati Contra Dancers have a list of Contra Terms.
The Thursday Night contra series in Glenside, Pennsylvania has a brochure welcoming new dancers and providing some basic information about contra dance. (pdf file)
Down Home Dancing in California has a guide for those who are thinking of going to a dance for the first time called What to Expect at a Community Dance.
Yael Schy has Twelve Tips for Contra Dancers which are helpful for the beginner and experienced dancer. New entry (January 10, 2008)

Blogs

One-shot entries in blogs are not included here (try Essays or Newspaper and magazine (non-genre) articles). I have included blogs by bands, musicians, callers, and dancers who keep their blog up to date (at least one entry in the last year) and have included a fair amount of entries about various aspects of contra dancing. I have no expectation that this list is definitive, but I'll keep adding entries as I find them.

Aisling, band New entry (February 17, 2008)
Apple Crisp, band
California, Santa Barbara Country Dance Society New entry (April 20, 2008)
Childgrove Dance Callers (and others)
Liza Constable, musician
Contraconnection, Oregon dance news
Contratopia, band
Dave and Lisa, contra dancing across America
Fiddlehedz, diary of a contradance fiddler
Folkmads, New Mexico dancers' road trips
Ohio, Cincinnati (dance scene) New entry (April 17, 2008)
Merri Rudd, caller
Peter Yarensky, musician and dance organizer

Books

William J. Watson maintains a listing of contra dance books and other sources of information.
According to the site "Dancing for Busy People" by Calvin and Judy Campbell has "...become the standard reference for leaders working in the Community Dance Program and people who lead beginner dance parties..." The book is described in detail on the page.
Among his pages, Kiran Wagle has information about a variety of books about dances and dancing.
The Hands Four Books and Recordings site lists books and other materials by or recommended by Tony and Beth Parkes.
The Internet Archive has information and text from a wide variety of early dance manuals including books that covered early contra dances.
Cynthia Van Ness has created Contra Dance: A Bibliography.
Erik Hoffman has excerpts from his books, Contra Comments, Contradictions, Old-Time Dance Calling for Weddings, Parties, and One-Night Stands, and The Contrarian on his web site along with ordering information.
Heiner Fischle has written A Guide to Contra Dance in German and in English.

National Organizations and Listings

The Country Dance and Song Society (CDSS) is an association of people and groups with a common interest in English and Anglo-American folk dance, music and song. Its members are recreational dancers, musicians, singers, teachers, callers, dance historians and people just having fun. The activities of its affiliated groups include dances, concerts, song gatherings, festivals and residential camps.
Lavender Country and Folk Dancers is a community site for gender role free contra dancing.
The Library of Congress, in their Folklife Sourcebook, has a list of state, local, and regionally oriented societies as they have historically played a major role in support of folklife studies, cultural conservation, and the perpetuation and presentation of traditional culture--particularly music, dance, and storytelling genres.
Contralab was founded by a group of concerned contra dance leaders from both the folkdance and western square dance movements. Site has problems (March 22, 2008)
An organization created to increase public awareness of the vital artistic and cultural importance of folk music and dance Folk Alliance is headquarted in Washington, D.C.
The Folk Dance Association provides a huge catalog of listings for a wide ranges of dances along with articles, contact information, etc. Laura Russell organizes it all. Site increasingly cobwebby with no festival or camp listings since 2003 (March 11, 2007)
While primarily for square dance callers, the American Callers Association has some areas that overlap with matters and issues for contra dance callers.
The Old Time Music and Dance website has links to a number of bands that play music at contra dance and groups that hold them.
The Down Home Dancing web site includes sections for the listing of events, a group forum, information about callers and bands, links to photographs, video and music and a plan on how to promote contra dancing and build up the site.

Mailing Lists, List Servers, and E-mail groups

SharedWeight.net is a mailing list is for callers and people who want to be callers for Contra and Traditional Square Dance.

Lists of Links

The New England Folk Festival Association provides an exhaustive list of contra links.
Ted Crane has been compiling a datatbase of dances, musicians, and callers. Very extensive with information about future dances across the country.
Dwayne Johnson has created a contra dance map with links for the entire United States.
Kiran Wagle's A Contradance Page is more than a simple page and includes links to a wide range of articles, groups, information, and dances.
Rhiannon Giddens has produced a good start on her comprehensive contra dance site aka The Contra Network which features a Dance Gypsy schedule, dance quotes, links, and photographs from dances in the Triangle/Triad area of North Carolina.

The following are other lists of links, some from contradance sites, others from general dance sites, and even more from various all-topic indices.

The Sapphire Swan Dance Directory includes listings for a broad range of dances including about 20 for contras.
Shantnu Mishra has produced Folk Dance Resources on the WWW which includes a goodly number of contra dance links.
Henry Neeman has a Non-Partner Dance Hotlist which includes links for contra dances along with other non-partner dances.
Will Linden provides an assortment of contra and country dance links.
World Wide Arts Resources gives a long list of links to various sites in the United States including contra dancing.
Jake Thomson has produced the Contra Dance Ring, a chain of web sites containing information about Contra Dancing.
Folk Fax has extensive lists of links and information about folk music and dance (more the former) in the United Kingdom.
The Slider web search page carries links about a variety of folk dances.
In addition, you can find contra dance links (or at least links for celtic dancing) in Polish and English from the Comhlan - Irish & Scottish Dance Group from Krakow, Poland.
Cbel's list includes all types of folk dancing.
Mike Schuh has a short list of links.
The Association of North Country Fiddlers has an extensive list of international resources for fiddlers and all acoustic musicians.
Trad.org is a new French site covering traditional music and dance.
Roger's Dance-Niche emphasizes English Country Dancing, but has plenty of links that are specific or relevant to contra dancing.

Several libraries have lists of links for dancing:

This page is part of the Contrdancelinks.com web site. For more information about contra dancing, visit these other site pages:

Sites and Pages

Schedules

Contra Dance / Contradance Resources, Dance Compositions, Indices, and the like

Sites and Pages

Schedules

http://www.contradancelinks.com/resources.html Produced by Charlie Seelig Last updated on June 4, 2008

Contra Dance / Contradance
Resources, Dance Compositions, Indices, and the like

http://www.contradancelinks.com/resources.html
Produced by Charlie Seelig
Last updated on June 4, 2008