One of the things I like most about contra dance is how it works with a very wide range of skill levels, including having one of the best learning curves of any dance form I know. As a community we are pretty committed to the idea that people should just be able to show up and start dancing, no lessons required. Which is why I'm very excited about a new "Becket first" approach I've been seeing from several callers.
Contra dance has several common starting formations, which are traditionally taught as:
Proper: one line of Larks, one line of Robins. It's "proper" because everyone is on their own ("proper") side.
Improper: start proper, then within each couple that is going to be going down the hall ("active" or "ones") the Lark and Robin swap.
Becket: start improper, then circle one place to the left.
These days, proper dances are uncommon, and most are improper or Becket. While some callers still use the older approach of getting people to line up proper and then asking the ones to cross over, at this point it's more common to just teach improper as the starting formation and have people start that way. But what if we go a step farther, and start with Becket?
This allows introducing the common duple minor ("hands four") dances to halls where the average skill level wouldn't support an improper dance:
Tell people to find a partner and make two long lines facing each other. Then to slide left or right until they're across from another couple and can take hands in a circle of four.
Call a dance leaves the dancers back where they started.
To progress, slide left. This is a lot easier than the "pass through", "California twirl", or "star left" that you tend to see in easy improper dances.
This lets you choose a dance that doesn't depend on roles, and during the progression each couple is connected and so is more likely to stay together.
Luke Donforth started a discussion on the Contra Callers List, and here are some role-free examples people shared. I've put them roughly in increasing order of difficulty.
Festival Reel #2 (Will Mentor)
Becket
| A1 | (8) | Long lines forward and back while sliding left |
| (8) | Long lines forward and back | |
| A2 | (8) | Star left |
| (8) | Star right | |
| B1 | (8) | Circle right |
| (8) | Circle left | |
| B2 | (8) | Partner dosido |
| (8) | Partner swing |
Pluck It (Luke Donforth)
Becket
| A1 | (8) | Circle Left |
| (8) | Circle Right | |
| A2 | (8) | Star Right |
| (8) | Star Left | |
| B1 | (8) | Partner Dosido (on the side) |
| (8) | Partner Swing | |
| B2 | (8) | Neighbor Dosido (across the set) |
| (8) | Long lines forward and back while sliding left |
Star Trek Phraser (Luke Donforth)
Becket
| A1 | (8) | Star left |
| (8) | Whole set circle right | |
| A2 | (8) | Whole set circle left |
| (8) | (Back in your hands four) circle left 1x | |
| B1 | (8) | Partner Dosido |
| (8) | Partner Swing | |
| B2 | (8) | Long lines forward and back |
| (8) | Star left 1x, slide right to next star |
Note that this one progresses "backwards", sliding right.
A Pillar of Weathersfield (Luke Donforth)Becket
| A1 | (8) | Petronella (balance and spin to the right) |
| (8) | Petronella (balance and spin to the right) | |
| A2 | (16) | Partner balance and swing, end facing down |
| B1 | (8) | Down the hall, turn as couples |
| (8) | Up the hall, bend the line | |
| B2 | (8) | Long lines |
| (8) | Promenade across the Set, turn as a couple and progress |
After doing a few of these you could stick with Becket and introduce roles to let you bring in additional figures that add variety. But what if you had a crowd that was ready for something with a higher piece count but you weren't introducing roles yet? I had a go at writing something:
Gremlins in the Keyboard (Jeff Kaufman)
Becket
| A1 | (8) | Long lines forward and back while sliding left |
| (4) | Pass through across | |
| (4) | Turn alone to face back in | |
| A2 | (8) | Petronella (balance and spin to the right) |
| (8) | Petronella (balance and spin to the right) | |
| B1 | (4) | Balance neighbor across the set |
| (4) | Pull by right, pull by left with partner along the set | |
| (4) | Balance neighbor across the set | |
| (4) | Pull by right, pull by left with partner along the set | |
| B2 | (2) | Turn over your right shoulder |
| (4) | Partner right shoulder round | |
| (10) | Partner swing |
I don't know if there are real situations for the weird combination of constraints that led to this dance, but it was a fun exercise!