Going through a backlog of NY Times emails, came across this article from early August, which has interesting background about contra dancing:
Dudley Laufman, Eminent Folk Dance Caller, Dies at 95 (should be unlocked gift link)
"A farmer, poet and musician, he revitalized contra dancing in the 1960s and ’70s, bringing the tradition to a new generation.
...
"Mr. Laufman was best known for calling contra dances, a style similar to square dances in which partners line up across from each other. The caller, backed by a band playing fiddles, accordions and other instruments, dictates the dancers’ movements, in keeping with the music.
Contra dancing has its roots in Europe and arrived in the United States in the late 18th century, taking hold in farming communities. But by the 1950s, when Mr. Laufman began calling, it was close to extinct.
Mr. Laufman brought a looser, more inviting energy to contra, one that appealed to the back-to-the-land counterculture of the ’50s, a precursor to the hippies of the ’60s...."
