Best contra dance video for non-dancers?

March 8th, 2012
contra
If I'm trying to get people to try contra dancing, and I want to give them an idea of what it's like, I think a video does a good job. There are lots of videos, though, so which to choose? For a while I was using this one from 2006 with Swallowtail because its the first one I saw, but more recently I've been pointing people to this 2009 Elixir one because I think it's more fun. Lately I've been wondering if that's too intimidating, though, as the caller has dropped out, the dancers are doing lots of flourishes, and the hall is packed. A big part of what makes contra approachable is that the caller teaches and calls the dance: can a video communicate this well? Or should I just find the video that looks the most fun and point them there, describing other positive aspects separately?

Do people have other videos they like for this?

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