Round the House members, from left, Mark Roberston-Tessi, Sharon Goldwasser, Dave Firestine, and Claire Zucker.
“If you can walk and count to eight, you can contra dance,” Sharon Goldwasser assured me at this week’s Thursday Night Contra Dance at the Glenside Memorial Hall.
The fiddler from Tucson’s celebrated Celtic band, Round the House, wasn’t exaggerating. As someone who considers shoelaces a mortal enemy and for whom the Black-Eyed Peas’ lyrics, “you got me trippin’, stumblin’, flippin’, fumblin’” resonate deeply, I thought I might be able to do it, even if there is math involved.
Contra dancing is a real aerobic workout—there were lots of flushed faces and sweat–but it’s really just walking to music. Reminiscent of square dancing and Irish ceili or set dancing with a little ‘60s line dancing thrown in, it involves a set of moves or figures dictated by the caller executed by a couple and a second couple and so on down the line.
“The figures of contra dancing are about 250 to 300 years old,” explained Glenside regular Bill Buckenhorst, who asked me to dance. “It’s two lines and four people. How the figures are combined is different for every dance. There’s no fancy steps, no one-two-three. You walk.”
And twirl, and do-si-do, and, as far as I could see, there’s some allamande lefting going on too. And lots of whirling, which necessitates a flippy or flowy skirt. Alas, I was wearing capris, so I had to turn Bill down. I won’t dance, don’t ask me. Fortunately, Louise showed up. “Louise!” said Bill. “I’d love to!” said Louise.
But I did get a chance to catch up with Round the House which, when they aren’t playing contra dances, play Irish traditional music in concerts and at festivals (you can catch them at this weekend’s Pen-Mar Festival in Glen Rock, PA, a fundraiser for Pen-Mar Human Services). Sharon Goldwasser, who has studied with Randall Bays, and string player Dave Firestine, an instructor at Colorado Roots Camp, host sessions in the Tucson area. Guitarist and mandolin player Mark Robertson-Tessi has won the Four Corners States Mandolin Championships twice. And bodhran player, singer, and contra dance caller Claire Zucker won the Mary Yolanda Dowling Vocal Competition at the Feis in the Desert two years in a row.
I guess you’re noticing that there aren’t really any Irish names among the group. “Our first names are Irish,” quips Claire, who is half Irish, half Jewish, but occasionally sings in Irish. “We like to say we’re 33 1/3 Jewish. But we started doing this because we all loved the music. We find that all over the country as we travel. Ethnicity doesn’t matter.”
Though they’re not, Sharon Goldwasser says, “pure drop,” you couldn’t tell by me. I’ve been listening to their 2007 CD, “Safe Home,” for a couple of years now, and it satisfies my Irish music yen. Their version of “Rory Og McRory” is almost enough to make me get up and contra dance. Almost.