Talk:Contra dance/Archive 2

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents 1 General 2 Improvements Needed *dealt with* 3 The "Overview" Essay 4 Miscategorizations? *dealt with* 5 Page move 5.1 Artifacts of the result 6 Choreographies? 7 Language and Style proposal 8 Unauthorized and Very Deficient Photographs 9 contra dance organizations 10 move choreography to own article? 11 Callers and dance composers proliferation 12 Barefoot dancing 13 Pictures of people (again) 14 See also section

General

Good; I'm glad to see there's a page on contra dance in Wikipedia. I agree with all those improvements, and I'll help when and where I can. I think the page can be moved from contradance to contra dance since contra dance is, and has ever only been a redirect. If not, it's just a matter of asking an admin. I'll look into this. JesseW 05:44, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

As you can see from the above message, I've requested this move at the proper page. Hopefully it won't be too much trouble. JesseW 05:51, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I was much impressed by this WP, and was linking it in our dance newsletter, and was testing the address I was giving out, when I saw some details that needed changing, and I found out how easy it seems to be to edit. Then I found this page, where I see far more concern over contradance content is evident than in the entry itself. It seemed like the main article had been fairly neglected, so I made some changes before I saw all this, I hope I didn't mess something up. Tom Thoreau. By the way, the writer above this (Choreography section) has no business talking like that around folk dancing. Lawyers don't practice to improve the human experience and contradancers don't create for profit, though one or two may have tried, and then given up dancing and enrolled in law school and should be ashamed.

Tom, welcome to Wikipedia. Be Bold and make whatever changes are needed. This whole article has been a little neglected over the past few months. I think editors got turned off over the discussion of what the article's name should be. Most of the changes look good (ignoring the surprisingly contentious issue of name). --Ahc 15:43, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, Tom, welcome to Wikipedia, and thanks for your contributions. Please be aware that just because you don't like lawyers does not negate the fact that (a) there are many fine lawyers and who are also fine contra dancers, musicians and callers, and more importantly (b) there are many musicians and callers who (attempt to) make their living bringing joy to people through dance. There are many books of choreography for sale, and many authors of those books frown on, or actively disallow, the publication of their creative works (e.g. in a wikibook). (Though I don't know anyone who minds having his or her dances shared thorugh the folk process, i.e. by copying down some choreography at a dance.) Depriving these people of a major source of their meager livelihood (e.g. the contents of choreography books) is a terrible thing and anyone who doesn't care about the well-being of the folk who bring them such joy "should be ashamed."

Improvements Needed *dealt with*

This page needs a number of improvements, some of which I'm already working on.

1. The article is long enough to deserve section headers (added)
2. The dance figures need to be explained - I'm working on that.
3. Some of the language was unfortunately gender-specific, using "women" and "men". It really ought to be explained in terms the gender roles of "ladies" and "gents", with the explanation that both men and women can (and frequently do) take either gender role. I've fixed this.
4. The early paragraphs are too region-specific, referring to "New England Contradance". While it's true that the modern revival of contra dance grew out of the New England tradition, the dance has spread far beyond its original geographic and stylistic roots. It's no longer specifically a New England dance form, and most contra dancers outside of New England simply use the term "contra dance". It also ignores the fact that contra dance also survived as a living dance form in the Appalachian mountains of Virginia and North Carolina.
5. For that matter, the two-word form "contra dance" is much more commonly used than the one-word "contradance". It's unfortunate that the article is under the title "contradance" while the "contra dance" page is a redirect.
6. The "History" section is far too short. It implies that American contra dance grew out of the French contredance, which it didn't. And a history of contra dance that lacks any mention of Ralph Page, Ted Sanella, and the whole 20th-century revival is incomplete. Major expansion is needed here.

McMullen 18:03, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The "Overview" Essay

on august 11, a short essay was added to the start of the contra dance page. half an hour later it was removed; this started a back-and-forth still active at the time of this writing. constantly reverting edits can become a tad tedious, and it is my hope that the dispute can be resolved here. below are some of the issues I have in the addition; others may see different problems:

repetition: the key issues in the essay are

• that contra dancers dance to have fun,
• cooperation is important in contra dancing,
• that contra dance lacks set footwork,
• that contra dancers often make mistakes,
• that contra dance lacks set footwork,
• that dancers wear plain clothes

and do not wear perfumes,

• that dancers may or may not sweat profusely,
• that contra dancers dance to have fun

and do not do anything fancy,

• that contra dancers dance in whatever way they feel,
• and that though there are some dance forms designed to preserve a historic dance form contra dance is not an example of them.

the points repeat themselves, and indeed repeat the article as it stands already, with these exceptions: the explicit mention of cooperation, that mistakes are made, and the question of perfume. these shortcomings have been incorporated into the contra dance article (see my edit of august 12) (as for the final point, it seems to belong in the discussion "miscategorizations?," topic 7 on this page)

pov: there are numerous instances of opinions which suggest an experience with a limited number of contra dancing communities. statements such as 'mistakes are not a problem,' and 'nothing "to do with how many tricks you can do,"' are clear generalizations --there are certainly dances where mistakes are noticed and frowned (though it's certainly also true that there are dances where they aren't), and there are many flashy dancers ought there for whom "tricks" are vital to the dance-- and a statement like "the most important thing to know is..." is clear opinion.

tone: the content of the addition aside, the tone is different from the rest of the article, and as such it distracts (rather than reading like an encyclopedia article, the article now reads like a discussion). as has been discussed by various critics of wikipedia there is a great danger of not being professional. with some editing the material introduced by the addition can be seamlessly incorporated into the article (as mentioned above) -- Eitch 21:13, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

• There's also been some discussion back and forth on talk pages, see User_talk:Improv#Contra_Dance and User_talk:Mattimero

Miscategorizations? *dealt with*

historical dance

• I'm not part of the historical dance community (or I don't think of myself one, though if the following suggestion is not supported I guess I'll have to reconsider) but it seems to me that putting contra dance in historical dance is a miscategorization:

"Historical dances may be danced as performance, for pleasure at themed balls or dance clubs, as historical reenactment, or for musicological or historical research." (from historical dance)

Looking over the list of dances it appears that the wp criterion is closer to "dance which is not modern dance or which became popular before the 1950's." While contra dance does originate in historical dance --indeed, in a centuries-old historical dance form of the same name-- the form as we know it today (substantially different from the historical form) did not become popular until well after this cut-off.

• Similarly, the "origins and history" section states that "[contra dance] came to be associated with the American folk dances, especially in New England" - in this case, it seems inappropriate to put contra dance in the european folk dances category. Eitch 01:57, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I like thinking about it as historical because it's oldfassion nature is something that really draws me and my friends to it. It reminds me of medieval dances and old Irish things. Contrafool 08:01, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Nonetheless, contra dancing today is significantly different from contra dancing even in the 1950's. Hearing no further objections, I've made the change (note also that this puts contra dance in line with other dances which might be considered its folk dance peers, e.g. clogging, morris, sword Eitch 05:15, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

european folk dancing

As contra dance now is not the contra dance brought over to the U.S. centuries ago, it seems that it would be better categorized an American folk dance (or Anglo-American folk dance, or non-Native American folk dance, etc). English country dance, after all, is not considered a French country dance. Now, I am not familiar with the European perception of contra dance's home, nor do I know whether this is a point debated by more professional dance historians.... Eitch 05:15, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Page move

Artifacts of the result

Just noticed that now if you are, as we suggest you might be, looking for the "form of classical music 'contredanse'" you´re out of luck -- there´s just a looping redirect. Seems like the people involved in this discussion know (or have learned in order to make an argument here) quite a bit about contredanse. So you know -- feel encouraged to write it up. Eitch 15:51, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Choreographies?

Would it be improper for Wikipedia to provide an article on choreographies? As far as I know, Contra dance (or however you want to spell it) choreographies are in the public domain, or at least the authors generally don't copyright them. While I would be happy with an "external link," I think a Wikipedia article would be useful as well, since it could be updated by many people. BobC 09:15, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Sounds to me like something that would make more sense for wikibooks. --Ahc 13:16, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

This makes sense to me -- a Wikibook on Contra dance choreographies, with a link on this page (and, presumably, a link from the Wikibook back to this article). At the moment, there are two books in the "Dance" section of the "Arts" bookshelf, one on salsa and one on swing. If others are interested in such a project, please send email to this Wikipedia user account. I am highly unlikely to have great ideas on the layout of such a tome, or standards for describing the choreographies.--SFBADanceDude 04:23, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Warning: the phrase "generally don't copyright them" is a recipe for copyvio. Everything with a creative component, once put in tangible form, and unless explicitly placed in the public domain, has copyright protection in the US. Failing to put a copyright notice on it does not limit the creator's exclusive rights, it just means that when they sue you for the income you've deprived them of, they won't also get back the cost of having their lawyer make you do so.

--Jerzy·t 21:16, 2005 August 16 (UTC)

Copyright issues aside for the moment, to me is seems that if people feel a collection of Choreographies is needed, it should be a wikibook. It would probably be similar to the Cookbook (although much smaller). --Ahc 19:38, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I've added a discussion of the relationship between dance counts and musical measures, and also of the relationship between dance structure and musical structure. -- Adca 16:53, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

The item about "weight" really has no place in the choreography section. It's an important term but belongs either in §3.3 (Terminology) or in an entire subsection of it's own. I'm going to move it to Terminology for now. -- Adca 16:53, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

On copyright of social dance choreography, note that U.S. copyright law recognized zero copyright in dances until January 1, 1978, and there is probably no or extremely limited copyright in social dance created since then. See the below section entitled: Copyright and Social Dance Choreography in the US. Yellowdesk 19:55, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Language and Style proposal

I would like to propose a gender-free convention for this page. How would people feel about using "lead" and "follow" instead of "ladies" and "gents?" Defenestrate

I disaggree, based on the fact that gender-free language is not generally used at dances (at least not those I've attened). I would suggest the article should match the standard conventions used at the events. --Ahc 05:49, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I so wasn't going to get involved in the debates surrounding the contradance article, but, well ... Ahc, I'm curious to know where you dance. At the dances I frequent in New England, the callers often use gender-free terms. Some people dance either role. I'm not sure whether the common usage in one area of the country warrants a change for the entire article, but perhaps there's nothing wrong with interspersing the terms. --Jkbaum 03:46, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I dance primarily in New England as well, and in my experience, even in dances that are specifically labelled "gender free", callers tend to use "ladies" and "gents" (which acknowledging that these are roles, and that for example a woman can be in the "gent" role). I've danced in Cambridge MA, at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, and at Glen Echo. I really can't remember any consistent use of "lead" and "follow" at any of these venues when I've been there. Those words get used sometimes, perhaps, by some callers, so perhaps the statement "the callers often use gender-free terms" is true in some sense, but ladies/gents is clearly the standard in my experience.Cos 06:37, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

"Ladies and Gents" are traditional in contra dance, and are considered gender neutral in the context of the contra dance. Also, there is no clear 'lead' and 'follow' as there is in ballroom dance, so the term would be confusing.--Livecontra 00:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I honor that you people are active contra dancers and come here from that practice or tradition... and a wikipedia article in no way shape or form needs to or should conform to the style or traditions of what it is reporting on.... mention those traditions and styles? yup... emulate them? no way! Sethie 03:21, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Unauthorized and Very Deficient Photographs

Several individuals have pointed out that they are identifiable in pictures that appear on the the contra dance page and they insist that the pictures be removed; they did not and will not give their permission to appear in pictures there, and the person who put the pictures there was wrong to put them in without authorization. Furthermore, the photographs are fuzzy and, among other things, do not show the correct posture for the swing and/or do not show any useful information. We therefore have removed them.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.17.15.208 (talk • contribs) 04:40, 21 August 2006

The pictures were poor quality, so removing them was not a problem. However, it is my understanding that if you go out in public you have no expectation of privacy, and therefore pictures of you can be used anyway the photographer chooses; they do NOT require authorization by the subjects. Think of the images that the news media use of people milling around at public events, they do not then stop all those people and ask for permission to broadcast the tape. If someone takes you picture in public that is their picture to do with as they please. --Ahc 13:48, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree that you can take pictures in public and generally use them freely(except for children). As a matter of courtesy, I think generally if someone asks for their picture to be removed, wikipedia should honor that request. 75.28.162.189 05:44, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

contra dance organizations

The recent addition of some local contra dance organizations looks to me like a dangerous direction for this page to take: There are at the least, as cataloged in the linked "Contra Dance Links" and Ted Crane's "Database," several hundred of contra dance organizations. We could move it to a new "Contra Dance Organization" article, but it is my feeling that such a listing should be left in the hands of the devoted websites; one purpose of WP is to collect all available information on a subject, but this does not mean duplicating extant well-done resources. -- Eitch 17:31, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be fine to delete any dance associations that are not national in scope, leaving CDSS on the page. CDSS probably has all of the mentioned groups on their web page. - Yellowdesk 04:45, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Done - I went to the CDSS site, and took the link (NEFFA LinkFest) they had. --Eitch 19:38, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

move choreography to own article?

Should we move the choreography section (the figures) to its own WP article. The contra dance article is very long, pushing the limit of Featured Article criterion 4, but the article is well-written and cannot be cut down without sacrificing good content. A half or third of the article's length is due to the choreography section. I'm not sure how I feel about this proposal myself - certainly your typical non-dancer who comes to WP to find out what contra dancing is is probably not too concerned with how to see-saw, but then of course they're probably also not worried about set formations either. Thoughts? --Eitch 19:53, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

It seems like a reasonably good idea. I think the subsections could probably be effectively broken into their own article (Contra Dance Figures or some such). I'll place the split template on there for now and let's see how the discussion progresses. --Ahc 14:54, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

You may find that moving the choreography section motivates moving the detailed section the "Form of a contra dance" along with it. Perhaps not a bad thing, but you may be undertaking a complete re-write of the remaining article. Perhaps the topic is "What should this article look like to someone who knows nothing about the topic? - Yellowdesk 04:57, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I was sort of getting at too - I don't think much rewriting would be necessary, but now that I look again it is nice to have all of the information concentrated in one place. It means the article is longer than some, but (today at least) I don't think it's a problem. --Eitch 23:06, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Just dropped by. When I look at this article and it's length, the first thing I think of moving is the formations, especially given the charts. I'm not saying they are bad, just.... well, if I knew nothing of contra dancing and came to this article, I would be maybe a bit overwhelmed, and certainly skip that section. Sethie 00:59, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I think moving them sounds good. The first thing someone will want to know is more what is the dance and a general feel for what it is like. I feel that a description of the figures is a step up from that, still useful, but also perhaps a bit overwhelming. Loggie 21:56, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Hearing nothing but support, I've made new "Contra dance form" and "Contra dance choreography" articles. No content has been changed in moving text from this article to the new ones (with the exception of changing the header depths); no change has been made to the "choreography" section of this article; minor changes were made to the "form" section of this article (fixing now-false "see below"'s and the like). (I see this has freed us of the "danger! large article!" warning :) -- Eitch 23:34, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Callers and dance composers proliferation

It looks like the Contra dance#Callers and dance composers section is in danger of proliferating, as the dance organizations section once did. Some Possibilities:

• Don't have such a section
• List only deceased influential caller/composers
• Have a prose section on influential callers/comosers (with the same proliferation dangers)
• List only callers that have a wiki page
• Cite some external page that does review callers/composers

-- Yellowdesk 18:01, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd go for the first. This problem has continued to worsen over the last few months, and it seems like we should try to do something about it. --Ahc 03:12, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me the best long-term solution is to require citations to sources, since new reader/editors will keep reviving the section and list. A review of twenty years of CDSS's journals, and of various callers' books would generate something worthwhile, perhaps even make for a stand-alone article. But it would be a lot of effort to accomplish. -- Yellowdesk 13:23, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure the section will keep coming back, that's some of why I like the talk pages, you can send people to review old discussions of the matter. If someone wants to try to assemble an exhustive list and create an article for it, I say go for it, but I'm concerned here that people are going to start using it as a way of advertising their services. --Ahc 03:55, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Barefoot dancing

Regarding the edit of "20:40, 28 August 2007 Ghmarkie" to the "Contra dance events" section, I'm curious as to how common it is to dance barefoot. Is this widespread geographically for certain types of events, or mostly a regional practice? --rich<Rich Janis 09:31, 31 August 2007 (UTC)>

I see it quite a lot. It's pretty hard on the foot, but those who choose it do not seem to mind. It definitely has nothing to do with the type of event, the ones who choose to dance barefoot tend to always dance barefoot. 199.125.109.119 05:37, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Pictures of people (again)

The picture of long lines in Seattle was unauthorized by me and other people in the picture and we insist that it be removed.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.17.15.208 (talk • contribs) 16:03, 28 October 2007

There is no such thing as unauthorizing a photo. Don't go to the dance if you don't want to be photographed. However there are a thousand other dance photos that can be used. 199.125.109.119 05:45, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

This was discussed earlier (again, following a comment by 69.17.15.208; see above), with the decision that we might as well honor people's wishes to have pictures of them removed. The legality and WP position are unclear— see Wikipedia_talk:Image_use_policy#Taking_pictures_of_people for and Wikipedia_talk:Image_use_policy#Images_of_people. Discussing this here won't have much impact beyond this article… I'd recommend that anyone interested get involved in those discussions or contact the editors who have been involved in them. — eitch 17:30, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

What's even more unusual is that the same person who uploaded the photo now doesn't want it to be used. Sooo, don't upload a photo if you don't want it to be used. Licenses are irrevocable. 199.125.109.119 18:54, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

See also section

I don't mind this being trimmed so much, other than Ted Sannella, who only appears in the reference section, shouldn't he be in the see also section if there is no link in the main article? 199.125.109.33 (talk) 04:30, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I think you found the best approach, by mentioning him within the article. Rich Janis (talk) 08:13, 28 November 2007 (UTC)