The Contra Conversion

Lamont cubicles. Playing another game of solitaire on the computer. Movie night every Saturday night.

Some adventurous first-years are stepping and twirling their way to a better social life.

Contra dancing, described by aficionados as part Richard Simmons aerobics class, part yee-haw square dance, and part intergenerational social mixer, has found a group of devotees among the Yard dorms.

“It’s all about pure, good intentions, being together as a community,” says recent convert Susan Lieu ’07. Max A. Newman ’07 is responsible for Lieu’s newfound hobby. Newman has introduced what he calls “guerrilla warfare tactics” to form a troop of dedicated contra enthusiasts. The craze has spread from his Grays East entryway all the way to Straus—and this Fairbanks, Alaska native has big plans for expansion.

While Boston is the mecca of contra dance, an Americanized form of Old English and Scotch-Irish line dancing, Newman has been playing in contra bands since the age of 13, and counts himself as part of the “great diaspora of contra dancing” he says has spread all the way to Alaska. He not only plays the tenor banjo, mandolin, guitar and contra piano, but also wrote his Harvard admissions essay on contra and community building. “My admissions officer wrote me and said, ‘We need you here to liven things up!’” he says. And that’s exactly what contra and Newman are all about.

Newman is a celebrity at Cambridge’s Veterans of Foreign Wars hall on Huron Avenue, where the sounds of stomping feet and fiddle music fill the air every Thursday night from 8 to 11 p.m. This evening he has brought along a group of students ready to catch the contra fever.

After hugging the ticket-taker and saying his general hellos to the extended contra family, Newman shows his novice crew the ropes. Layers fly off as the group ties on their leather dancing shoes and heads out to the expansive sixties-era social hall.

Newman isn’t kidding when he says that contra types are “super-friendly.” The timid Harvardians are immediately whisked onto the dance floor by various Chucks, Bobs and Steves. “Never contra’d before? Not a problem, just follow me!” Lines of eager partners spin to the beat, following the caller’s directions with varying levels of accuracy and energy. “Do-si-do! Left A-la-mains! Spin ’er round! Come to!” The spirit is contagious; everyone, from middle schoolers to octogenarians, grins and glows.

“It’s really fun! I feel like I’m in a fifties musical—Oklahoma or something!” says Sophia P. Snyder ’07. “I’m not really a good dancer, but they teach it to you every time so you feel like you’ve learned something.”

Friendliness is the only common trait among dancers. People of all ages, sizes and backgrounds mingle as they switch partners during each dance. “In contra you really dance with everybody else in the room,” says Newman. Participants range from MIT grad students to retired schoolteachers. This eclectic bunch are self-described “nurses and nerds,” with a healthy dose of Harvard alums mixed in.

Leonard W. Lu ’98 did not contra dance as an undergraduate, but like many other Harvardians discovered this underground world after entering the post-college social scene. Lu says many people are attracted by the analytical nature of contra dancing. “You can think of it as memorizing patterns of matrix rotations,” explains Lu, who is a member of the MIT contra club.

Contra achieves the balance between innocent, friendly fun and the excessive groping of a Mather room party. Although eye contact and handholding are essential elements of contra, there are no overtly sexual overtones. “High school dances really suck, it’s all about avoiding contact and communication. Contra is the opposite and that’s why people keep coming back. It’s very intimate,” says Lieu.

For some it’s more intimate than for others. According to longtime dancers, many people have met their “sole” mates on the contra circuit. One of these lucky men describes his whirlwind romance in the context of folk dance: “We knew each other through local events and then took a Lindy workshop up in Saratoga Springs in February of ’99. Something just clicked and three years later we were married.”

While Newman does not expect contra to act as a dating service at Harvard, he does think that it could bring a little more spirit to a sometimes-asocial community. Newman plans to found a Contra Club once he has established a base of support. After Thursday’s dance, it looks like he already has a few more contra converts.