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Finding Ecstasy... at the Contradance
by Donna Hébert
Ecstasy is the achievement of the peak experience at anything, a not only
memorable, but a "larger than life" experience that takes us entirely outside of
ourselves. Ecstasy dissolves our boundaries, makes us one with everything.
An ecstatic experience expands and opens our energy centers, as though pure
light is being poured through our bodies and souls.
We feel joy and euphoria. If the peak experience is shared, even by only two
people, then so is the ecstasy and the deep soul connection it engenders.
When we play music in an ensemble, we build on each other's presence and
contributions, however grand or humble, and the community and creativity
thus created is far more important than any performance standard. We look for
the "groove," the shared rhythmic pulse, playing together in the same place on
the beat, listening to each other and making little changes to find that groove
or group rhythm, to lock onto it like a heartbeat.
When it happens, when all or even most of a group find a common rhythm
together, they pull the others in as well. Sometimes one person's rhythm is just
stronger and everyone else listens and jumps in. One recipe for bringing less
experienced players into the groove is to begin with a slow jam session,
playing at half speed, each time getting a little bit faster, until the group is
playing at dance speed, all without stopping.
Communication among group members is almost entirely wordless, with our
hearts and minds attending to the music rather than the busy traffic of life.
Listening with "big ears," everyone makes minute adjustments intuitively and
joyfully to "plug in" to the groove with the others.
Something spiritual happens when we hit that groove. Everyone's happier, our
hearts are lighter, we play better, more easily and energetically. It's a solid
place, locked into the rhythm of the tune, the pulse of the music we are
making. We ride with the melodies and play what they suggest along the way,
always listening, always ready to change to fit the needs of dancers. Movement
and rhythm are in our bodies while we play... Watch us dance while we play
for your dancing, with cause and effect blurred, all coming together, beats
synchronized as 200 feet hit the floor "BAM!" as one!
The Nirvana of the Contradance
When you bring that groove to a hall full of good dancers, they give back with
their feet the rhythms that you've just bounced off your bow. From a
musicians' viewpoint, it makes me want to try MORE rhythms and see what
they do with those. And more. And so on.
Playing with other musicians or for dancers completes the energy circuit
necessary for an ecstatic experience to occur. That shared experience creates
deep ties to each other, and has undeniably contributed to the rapid growth in
25 years of the contradancing community nationwide, from probably 20
contradances across the country in 1970 to over 400 today. Why? What's the
secret?
I believe that what occurs is that dancers, musicians, and dance leaders have
"peak experiences" at the dance as they repeat the figures over and over with
new sets of people and old friends, meeting and greeting them as they move
up and down the line. As the dancers get the figure down, the caller stops
calling, and the dancers can just dance to the music with each other, moving in
time together, cooperatively, with common purpose. Afterwards, they are no
longer strangers, but people with whom you shared an enjoyable and deeply
satisfying experience.
These simultaneous and interrelated peak or ecstatic experiences create a bond
of good feeling and an affectionate connection to the other dancers, the
musicians, the dance leaders, even the hall. It's as if they'd fallen in love. The
dancers give each other rides to dances, organize potluck suppers before the
dances, and go out afterwards for something to eat. I can't tell you how many
dancers I've "married" (played at their weddings) in 25 years, several of them
more than once!
The energy is also heightened by the length of individual dances. Often
musicians are called upon to play for dances lasting up to twenty minutes. So
everything lasts long enough to build up energy, which often gets released at
tune changes or musical high points, and at the end of the dance.
When the musicians are truly experienced at having an ecstatic experience
themselves, they facilitate that ecstasy in the dancers. That's our job, isn't it, to
make the dancers holler? The best dance musicians know how to watch the
walk-through to pick a tune with matching phrases, how to listen to the
dancers and know, from what they see on the floor, when to stick to the
melody and an unvarying rhythm to help new dancers get into the groove with
everyone else, and when to change tunes or punch up a melody with
variations.
When the band is hot and really grooving, the dancers pick it up and dance
differently, just a little more wildly, shedding more of their daily cares as they
respond to the call of the fiddle. I know it's happening when I hear a hall full of
taciturn teetotalling Yankees let go of a shout of delight!
We live in a culture that denies ecstasy, labels it "bad or unhealthy" (sex), or
"illegal" (drugs/alcohol), or taxes it in guilt and pain. Yet we still wish for
deep connections to each other and want our lives deepened by these joyful
experiences. Music and dance are one way to bring them about.
The sound of the music - the flute's throaty wail, the insistent repeat of the
fiddle's beat, that magical connection between the tip of a fiddler's bow and the
tap of a dancer's toe. The look of the dancers, hands outstretched to greet you,
smiling, as they turn towards you. The feel of the air on your skin, of
momentary touch at hand, shoulder, waist by your partners in this round of
the figure. The beat of the feet on the floor in perfect time with the music. The
flying-skirted color streaks of twirling women. Sound, sight, smell, touch.
Your heart beating in time with the music. Senses combine in an ecstatic
experience, and you can occasionally repeat this euphoria built of rhythm,
melody and movement if you come back and keep dancing to good music and
callers.
I've seen it on the dance floor, felt it singing and playing with other musicians,
holding hands in a circle of song. Transcendant experiences open us up, while
fear shuts us down. From the far side of ecstasy, we see the connections, the
fragile web of life and our place in it. We build the bridges between strangers
in the community that grows from shared positive experience. Fear buys guns.
I'll take pleasure, please. See you at the contradance!
About the author:
Donna Hébert is a New England contradance and Franco-American fiddler and
teacher whose essays and poetry about the experience of making music have
been published in SING OUT! Magazine, Fiddler Magazine, Country Dance
and Song, The Old Time Herald, and Strings Magazine. She also edits "The
Muse of Joy and Sorrow: why we play the fiddle." She also directs In the
Groove Workshops, and Groove Camp
More stories about life in New England
by Donna Hébert
Ecstasy is the achievement of the peak experience at anything, a not only
memorable, but a "larger than life" experience that takes us entirely outside of
ourselves. Ecstasy dissolves our boundaries, makes us one with everything.
An ecstatic experience expands and opens our energy centers, as though pure
light is being poured through our bodies and souls.
We feel joy and euphoria. If the peak experience is shared, even by only two
people, then so is the ecstasy and the deep soul connection it engenders.
When we play music in an ensemble, we build on each other's presence and
contributions, however grand or humble, and the community and creativity
thus created is far more important than any performance standard. We look for
the "groove," the shared rhythmic pulse, playing together in the same place on
the beat, listening to each other and making little changes to find that groove
or group rhythm, to lock onto it like a heartbeat.
When it happens, when all or even most of a group find a common rhythm
together, they pull the others in as well. Sometimes one person's rhythm is just
stronger and everyone else listens and jumps in. One recipe for bringing less
experienced players into the groove is to begin with a slow jam session,
playing at half speed, each time getting a little bit faster, until the group is
playing at dance speed, all without stopping.
Communication among group members is almost entirely wordless, with our
hearts and minds attending to the music rather than the busy traffic of life.
Listening with "big ears," everyone makes minute adjustments intuitively and
joyfully to "plug in" to the groove with the others.
Something spiritual happens when we hit that groove. Everyone's happier, our
hearts are lighter, we play better, more easily and energetically. It's a solid
place, locked into the rhythm of the tune, the pulse of the music we are
making. We ride with the melodies and play what they suggest along the way,
always listening, always ready to change to fit the needs of dancers. Movement
and rhythm are in our bodies while we play... Watch us dance while we play
for your dancing, with cause and effect blurred, all coming together, beats
synchronized as 200 feet hit the floor "BAM!" as one!
The Nirvana of the Contradance
When you bring that groove to a hall full of good dancers, they give back with
their feet the rhythms that you've just bounced off your bow. From a
musicians' viewpoint, it makes me want to try MORE rhythms and see what
they do with those. And more. And so on.
Playing with other musicians or for dancers completes the energy circuit
necessary for an ecstatic experience to occur. That shared experience creates
deep ties to each other, and has undeniably contributed to the rapid growth in
25 years of the contradancing community nationwide, from probably 20
contradances across the country in 1970 to over 400 today. Why? What's the
secret?
I believe that what occurs is that dancers, musicians, and dance leaders have
"peak experiences" at the dance as they repeat the figures over and over with
new sets of people and old friends, meeting and greeting them as they move
up and down the line. As the dancers get the figure down, the caller stops
calling, and the dancers can just dance to the music with each other, moving in
time together, cooperatively, with common purpose. Afterwards, they are no
longer strangers, but people with whom you shared an enjoyable and deeply
satisfying experience.
These simultaneous and interrelated peak or ecstatic experiences create a bond
of good feeling and an affectionate connection to the other dancers, the
musicians, the dance leaders, even the hall. It's as if they'd fallen in love. The
dancers give each other rides to dances, organize potluck suppers before the
dances, and go out afterwards for something to eat. I can't tell you how many
dancers I've "married" (played at their weddings) in 25 years, several of them
more than once!
The energy is also heightened by the length of individual dances. Often
musicians are called upon to play for dances lasting up to twenty minutes. So
everything lasts long enough to build up energy, which often gets released at
tune changes or musical high points, and at the end of the dance.
When the musicians are truly experienced at having an ecstatic experience
themselves, they facilitate that ecstasy in the dancers. That's our job, isn't it, to
make the dancers holler? The best dance musicians know how to watch the
walk-through to pick a tune with matching phrases, how to listen to the
dancers and know, from what they see on the floor, when to stick to the
melody and an unvarying rhythm to help new dancers get into the groove with
everyone else, and when to change tunes or punch up a melody with
variations.
When the band is hot and really grooving, the dancers pick it up and dance
differently, just a little more wildly, shedding more of their daily cares as they
respond to the call of the fiddle. I know it's happening when I hear a hall full of
taciturn teetotalling Yankees let go of a shout of delight!
We live in a culture that denies ecstasy, labels it "bad or unhealthy" (sex), or
"illegal" (drugs/alcohol), or taxes it in guilt and pain. Yet we still wish for
deep connections to each other and want our lives deepened by these joyful
experiences. Music and dance are one way to bring them about.
The sound of the music - the flute's throaty wail, the insistent repeat of the
fiddle's beat, that magical connection between the tip of a fiddler's bow and the
tap of a dancer's toe. The look of the dancers, hands outstretched to greet you,
smiling, as they turn towards you. The feel of the air on your skin, of
momentary touch at hand, shoulder, waist by your partners in this round of
the figure. The beat of the feet on the floor in perfect time with the music. The
flying-skirted color streaks of twirling women. Sound, sight, smell, touch.
Your heart beating in time with the music. Senses combine in an ecstatic
experience, and you can occasionally repeat this euphoria built of rhythm,
melody and movement if you come back and keep dancing to good music and
callers.
I've seen it on the dance floor, felt it singing and playing with other musicians,
holding hands in a circle of song. Transcendant experiences open us up, while
fear shuts us down. From the far side of ecstasy, we see the connections, the
fragile web of life and our place in it. We build the bridges between strangers
in the community that grows from shared positive experience. Fear buys guns.
I'll take pleasure, please. See you at the contradance!
About the author:
Donna Hébert is a New England contradance and Franco-American fiddler and
teacher whose essays and poetry about the experience of making music have
been published in SING OUT! Magazine, Fiddler Magazine, Country Dance
and Song, The Old Time Herald, and Strings Magazine. She also edits "The
Muse of Joy and Sorrow: why we play the fiddle." She also directs In the
Groove Workshops, and Groove Camp
More stories about life in New England
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