Why is it hard for contra dancers to circle right?
Pushing, pulling, and following the leader
I like dancing, social dancing particularly, and contra dancing especially. Today, I’m going to talk about three things. The third thing I’ll talk about is why, in contra dancing, it’s usually harder to circle to the right than to circle to the left.
In order to get there, I need to first talk about leading and following in dancing, talk a little bit about how contra dancing works, and then I can talk about one weird reason why contra dancers, even experienced ones, so frequently mess up when trying to circle right.
I can think of three reasons why it’s harder to circle right, but one is self-fulfilling, an effect as much of a cause: Contra dances usually don’t include rightward circling because it’s harder. A second is that when going into or out of a swing, angular momentum is in the same direction as a leftward circle, which means one of the most common dance moves “flows” the opposite direction from a rightward circle. Those are simple reasons. But I believe there’s also a third reason.
What does it mean to “lead” and “follow” in dance?
The short and succinct answer many beginning dancers want to hear when they ask this question at the start of a beginners’ lesson is that the “lead” role is the traditional “men’s” role, and the “follow” role is the traditional “women’s” role.
However, that’s a historical description, not a real answer! Exactly what a lead is supposed to do and what a follow is supposed to do depends a little bit on the style of dance, but there are three common threads in what characterizes leading and following other than the traditional link to gender roles:
When one partner uses physical cues to direct movement of the the other partner, the one directing is leading the move.
When one partner moves the other partner, the one moving is following.
When one partner moves themselves using the other partner as a platform, the one providing the platform is leading.
Two verbs I deliberately didn’t include in the above list are decide and initiate. A certain number of dancers, including some dance instructors, regularly claim that leads are the ones who decide what moves are going to happen. I would strongly disagree with the idea this defines leading and following behavior. Non-verbal communication on the dance floor goes both directions, and the sequence of moves in a well-executed dance is generally a collaborative process.
Not all partner dances involve all three of these types of asymmetric movement, and not all dancers have an easy time correctly distinguishing between them. Different dance styles will involve different amounts of each of these three types of asymmetric movement.
Overall, though, even in dance styles and communities where it’s frowned upon by vocal traditionalists, there will be plenty of times where the follow leads and the leader follows, especially when the person in the lead role is inexperienced. Conversely, even in partner dance styles and communities where role flexibility is encouraged, most dancers still specialize either in leading or following.
What is contra dancing?
Contra dancing can be described as being a partner dance, a set dance, a social dance, and also a called dance. Dancers are paired with a partner to form a couple. Couples are paired to form sets of four. Sets of four are, in turn, arranged in lines. The basic structure of a contra dance is a 64 beat sequence of moves that generally starts and ends in one of three formations, known as “proper,” “improper,” and “Becket.” (There are a few “indecent” dances, but we’ll ignore them for the moment.)
Originally, the traditional starting formation for contra dancing placed all the follows on one side of the long line, and all the leads on the other side of the long line. This is known as “proper” formation. Most modern contra dances start and end in a formation where leads and follows alternate, with couples either being across the set from each other (“improper”) or sharing the same side of the long line (“Becket”).
Circling right
The caller’s role is to tell the dancers what to do as the dance happens - so, for example, the caller may say “circle right three quarters” and the contra dancers will join hands in a ring and move to their right (counterclockwise), describing an arc of about 270 degrees (three quarters of a circle). This objectively is not a complicated move, and the similar call of “circle left three quarters” is rarely problematic. So why is it hard?
After all, if all four dancers remember to circle right, or if all four dancers remember to circle left, that seems like it should be equally difficult. However, not all contra dancers are equally adept at leading and following under all circumstances. In a typical dance, many of the leads are not very good at following, and many of the follows are not very good at leading.
There will usually be a few “ambidancestrous” dancers, a few people dancing outside of their preferred role, and a few dancers who are not very skilled at either leading or following, but most contra dancers have one preferred role that they are better at and dance most of the time. Even the dancers who are similarly good at both leading and following overall sometimes have trouble changing gears suddenly; dancing “switch” is more challenging than changing roles between dances.
As with most modern partner dances, most interactions between leads and follows in contra dances end with the lead on the left hand side and the follow on the right hand side, the main exceptions happening during proper contra dances. Proper contra dances may have been typical back when George and Martha Washington were the nation’s most famous contra dancing couple, but they’re vanishingly rare relics today.
Most contra dance moves involve tension connections (pulling), and circling is not an exception to this. Neither are the moves that commonly lead into a circle. What this means is that when it comes for time for a set to join hands in a ring of four and circle, this usually means joining two lead-follow units where the lead is on the left and the follow is on the right and the lead and follow have a tension connection.
In a typical lead-follow dynamic, it’s easier for the lead to direct a move along any of the angles that point away from a tension connection. It’s harder for the lead to direct a move towards this tension connection. It’s also harder for a follow to direct any move by the lead. Some of this involves the types of flourishes contra dancers like to do, some of this is the physics of it, and some of it is just ingrained habits and learned skills.
So. Let’s circle left. A pair of dancers will typically initiate a circle left smoothly if:
Both dancers remember to circle left.
The lead remembers to circle left and starts an easy lead-follow interaction.
The follow remembers to circle left and starts a difficult lead-follow interaction.
The set of four dancers will smoothly and beautifully circle left if both pairs initiate the circle left smoothly. Similarly, the set of four dancers will smoothly and beautifully circle right if both pairs initiate the circle right smoothly. For the pair to initiate the circle right smoothly, this requires that:
Both dancers remember to circle right.
The follow remembers to circle right and starts a difficult lead-follow interaction.
The lead remembers to circle right and starts a difficult lead-follow interaction.
Most contra dancers dancing in the lead role are not very good at following. Most contra dancers dancing in the follow role are not very good at leading. And even some of the ones that are … well, they’re not always in the right headspace for it. It’s also worth noting that most of the time, the “difficult” lead-follow interactions aren’t failures where the set disintegrates into chaos; it’s just that there’s more often a momentary hiccup in the rhythm of the dance, one large enough that the dancers in the set will notice it and remember it.
Why lead and follow in a circle?
Actively leading and following is optional in set dancing, but it’s popular among experienced contra dancers. Even in figures like circles, which superficially look like symmetric moves. Why would this be? Well, one answer is that a lot of people like leading and following; but another is that actively leading or actively following means engaging in non-verbal communication, which increases the chance of getting things right.
If every dancer has a 90% chance of remembering the move correctly, the chance that someone forgets is 34.4% - just over 1 in 3. The chance that one of the two leads forgets is only 19% - less than 1 in 5. When contra dancers act as two pairs instead of four individuals, they increase their chances of pulling off the move seemingly-perfectly. (It also increases the chance that the dancers improvise a smoothly-executed wrong move.)
And this is true even when circling right! It’s just that recovering a rightwards circle when one dancer forgets what they’re supposed to do tends to be a little bit harder, and that makes the mistake a little bit more memorable for all parties involved.