A Face In The Crowd
Phrases like “ladies chain” and “hey for four” may not mean much to most of us. But they do to Susan Kevra. A senior lecturer in French at Vanderbilt University by day, Kevra is an internationally recognized contra dance caller by night. Those phrases, among many others, are her stock in trade. “A caller’s function is to prompt the dancers in the most musical way possible—and to wean the dancers from the calls as soon as they appear to have memorized the sequence,” Kevra says. Contra, a sort of line dancing brought to North America by English colonists 400 years ago, caught on in New England from the start, spread around the country in the 1940s and was revived in the 1960s by hippies who embraced the dance form. Today, contra dances can be found from New York City to Alaska—often with Kevra calling the moves. She even spent a year in France teaching contra to the French. “I may be the only person in the world who can teach American contra in French,” Kevra says. Locally, she calls contra and square dances for Nashville Country Dancers, a group that convenes to enjoy traditional American folk dances. (Nashville Country Dancers meet weekly, 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. Fridays, at the Woodbine Community Center.) You can hear Kevra in action—and even learn a few contra moves yourself—at a beginner’s workshop Sept. 26 at 7:30 p.m. at the Cohn Adult Community Center. An old-time barn dance to the sounds of the Nashville Bluegrass Band follows from 8 to 11 p.m. If you have residual childhood folk dance nightmares, though, Kevra understands. “I had the typical experience in elementary school where you had to learn square dancing in gym class,” she says. “I thought it was the geekiest, silliest thing you’d ever want to do. Even as an adult I thought it was too weird the first time I went to a contra dance, and I left. A year later, I went back, and it’s been a romance for me ever since.”
—By Angela Wibking
