If you pass Belfast’s Armistice Bridge on Saturday night, you may hear a drift of upbeat fiddle music and see a line of people moving in time to the beat.
The “almost-solstice” contra dance, held by the Belfast Flying Shoes, is coming back.
Contra dancing is a type of community folk dance descended from English, Scottish, and French styles of dance from the 17th century. Live bands playing folk tunes on string instruments — guitars, cellos, banjos, and of course fiddles — set the musical backdrop tone.
“It’s kind of magical,” said Belfast Flying Shoes Executive Director Chrissy Fowler. “The Armistice Footbridge, it’s a marvelous public place. You’re dancing over the water, often there’s a beautiful sunset. It’s magical to be out there dancing.”
What sets this event apart from other contra dances is that it’s held outdoors. The inspiration behind contra dancing in public spaces stemmed from one local artist’s vision in 2010. Karin Spitfire was doing a celebration of sardines, Fowler said, and wanted to do a dance as part of it.
“We did this crazy dance on the bridge; it was wild and fun. Karin Spitfire’s brainstorm, her sardine dance, was over the bay where the sardines and the herring would come,” Fowler said. “People were so delighted by it that we wanted to do others.”
Other contra dances were held pre-pandemic at City Park, Steamboat Landing, City Point Railroad Station, and Brooks Preservation Society after the success on the Armistice Bridge, which was introduced as a recurring event in 2019.
Shortly after, contra had become, according to Fowler, a “non-starter” due to the moratorium on large public gatherings of any type during the pandemic.
In 2021, as part of phasing contra dances back to what they had been, the Flying Shoes re-implemented events at Steamboat Landing for a series titled “Sundays in the Park.” The Footbridge Dance returned the following year.
“The inspiration to do the dances in public parks came from just wanting to get it out there for other people who might not necessarily self-select to go,” Fowler said. “You’re walking by, and you decide to stop; it’s different than if you’re at a contra dance, when it’s in a hall, you have to make that decision, intention, to walk into the hall and pay your money.”
Belfast Flying Shoes is a small nonprofit established in 2005. Several organizational initiatives have put it on the map.
“Just occasional things, like the footbridge dances, are one of those,” Fowler said.
The footbridge event is an annual recurrence, but Belfast Flying Shoes are planning another Armistice Bridge dance in the autumn.
This summer’s eve contra dance will be held on Friday, June 22, at 6:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public, newcomers, and seasoned dancers and non-dancers alike.
Belfast Flying Shoes holds a monthly community dance on first Fridays, a program at the Maine Coastal Regional Reentry Center, where it is in the process of resuming its contra dance and music lesson programs that paused in 2020.
The group also has a weekly show on the local community radio station, highlighting the contra dance music and musicians on Belfast Community Radio WBFY.
