4515 West Hills Road
Corvallis
Contra dance is back to the regular schedule in Corvallis! The dance will start at 7:00 PM with a newcomer’s lesson and community meetup, helpful for all dancers. Following the lesson will be dancing from 7:30 PM to 10:30 PM. No partner necessary. Dance calling and role terms will be Larks & Robins. The cost is $12 – $20 sliding scale.
Because of the Covid-19 situation:
All attendees must sign a waiver for the First Congregational UCC (our dance hall) before their first dance of the 2024-25 season. Please read the waiver here before you arrive in order to speed up the check-in process at the door.
Thank you for helping to keep our dance community safely dancing! For more information on attendance requirements and other precautions, please see our current COVID-19 policy here, to be further updated soon.
The Euphemists
The Euphemists are not your ordinary contra dance band. Yes, they have fiddle, piano, and whistle (Alan Snyder, Dave Goldman, and Greg Martin). But they also have HORNS! (Greg Martin and Stephanie Shea on various saxophones, and Kaye Blesener on trombone.) In addition to familiar Celtic, Québécois, and old-time tunes, the band plays lively jazz standards that feature the horn section. Throw in some ragtime era tunes, a little klezmer, and even a Sousa march, and it all adds up to a highly entertaining dance
Maya Roe
Maya has been calling since 2022. In her 2023 blog she wrote:
I drove with two of my best friends down to Corvallis, Oregon to dance at the Corvallis Contra Weekend. This was my first contra weekend since the pandemic and I was so excited. Two of my favorite bands, Elixir and Countercurrent, were playing the dance, and I was excited to meet and dance with some of the best dancers on the West Coast.
Although I hardly knew any other dancers at the weekend, I quickly got to know a few of the local callers and younger dancers.
At Corvallis, I had the chance to connect with lots of contra dancers and callers from the Pacific Northwest and beyond. From all of my conversations with them, I came away with a few lessons about the PNW contra community.
- There are more dance weekends, dances, bands, and dancers on the West Coast than I thought!
- It is so helpful to dance with dancers who are much better than me. I need to seek out opportunities to go to challenging dances whenever I can.
- It is quite easy to tell whether experienced callers are interested in mentoring/ supporting beginning callers or not. Many are!
- If you want to practice anti-racist and gender-free calling, you need to take that into account as you choose mentors.
- Being on an island makes learning to call more tough because there are not many gigs on an island.
- People at contra weekends are unbelievably generous. They will help you find somewhere to stay if you need it.
Dance starts at 7:30pm.
Each dance is taught. No partner necessary
(it’s traditional to dance each dance with a different partner).
We are still seeking new volunteers to help with dances in the fall! If you are interested in volunteering this fall, please see role descriptions and tell us how you would like to help by taking our volunteer survey at:
https://bit.ly/CorvallisContraVolunteering2022
For questions regarding contra dance volunteering, please contact Shell Stowell at corvalliscontra@gmail.com
