Albuquerque Contra Dance

Fourth Sundays on Hawkins Street

On the fourth Sunday of each month the Albuquerque Square Dance Center, at 4915 Hawkins Street NE, opens for a contra dance at two in the afternoon. The first half hour is a lesson. Dancers of every level are encouraged to come, to learn the basic moves and the vocabulary that goes with them or to refresh them. At 2:30 the lines form.

Contra, as the New Mexico Folk Music and Dance Society describes it, is a traditional American social dance with roots in western European folk dance. Dancers stand in long lines down the hall with their partners across from them. A caller prompts each figure. Each couple dances with the couple beside it, and the figures carry the couples up or down the set. The society’s test for ability is short: “If you can walk and hold hands, then you can contra dance.” No one needs to bring a partner. Partners change after every dance, and in the dances called mixers they change at every progression. Among the descriptions the society has collected from dancers are “geometry in motion, order out of chaos” and “a human whirligig: people moving in patterns to live music.”

The dancing runs until about four. Then comes a waltz and a break of ten to fifteen minutes with snacks, taken at the tables and chairs at the end of the hall, in the same room as the floor. Dancing resumes for the rest of the afternoon and closes with a second waltz. The calendar gives five o’clock as the end.

Admission is pay what you want. The suggestion is $10 a person or $10 to $20 a family, and the society asks for no bills larger than a $20. Any clothing a dancer can move in will do. Shoes should be clean, soft-soled, and non-marking to protect the floor. The society recommends layers, since the hall and its occupants get warmer as the dance goes on. Some of the men wear skirts. The society’s explanation: “Because twirling is fun!” Anyone may dance as lead or follow regardless of gender.

The hall is shared with other dancers. Duke City Square Dancing holds a square dance there every Friday. The folk society runs an English country dance in the same room on second Sundays, also from two to five. By the society’s account, English country dance is the common ancestor of contra and square and dates back four hundred years to the English courts.

The callers

The society calls its callers “the bridge between the music and the dance.” They give directions to the dancers and suggestions to the musicians. Its roster for the Albuquerque area reads like a set of short biographies.

Ben Werner grew up contra dancing in upstate New York. He started calling in 2013 after moving to Albuquerque and learned the basics in the Callers Collective, which holds monthly practices at the house of Erik Erhardt, a professor who calls contra and English himself.

Lauren Soherr-Hadwiger began calling dances in Albuquerque and Santa Fe at the age of ten. With nine years of calling behind her, she was taking it to Boston, where she attends college. “Diverse dances can unite diverse dancers,” she once put it.

Merri Rudd calls contras, English country dances, and an occasional square. Her listing says her dances are “often replete with literary quotes, funny quips, and lots of fast swings, gypsies, and medleys.”

Lewis Land began calling in Las Cruces in 2003 under the guidance of Lonnie Ludeman. While he lived in Carlsbad his engagements meant long drives, and he was often reminded of a saying about the callers’ trade: “driving hundreds of miles for dozens of dollars.” He has since moved to Albuquerque.

Kit French first met English country dance at Pinewoods Camp on Cape Cod at age eleven. He now organizes the Second Sunday series and an annual ECD Ball.

From the Heights Community Center

In September 2010 the Weekly Alibi listed the Albuquerque contra on the third Saturday of the month, 7 to 10:30 p.m., at the Heights Community Center, 823 Buena Vista SE. The ABQ Megaband played and Linda Starr called. Tickets were $8, $7 for members, and $4 for students with ID.

Jane Phillips, then president of the society, told the paper that it put on contra dances four times a month. In Albuquerque the music usually came from an old-time string band. Phillips played fiddle and upright bass and had learned by ear. She traced the music to Appalachia while allowing that other traditions all over the country had a hand in it. “It’s basically the old mountain music pre-recording, pre-radio, passed down through the aural tradition,” she said. There were always some twenty- and thirtysomethings on the floor, she said, and several newcomers lately. On Megaband nights any musician with an acoustic instrument could sit in.

The Megaband is an all-volunteer, open, acoustic band. It was hatched in the mid-1980s and has served as an incubator for new musicians and for musicians new to the genre. It plays mainly southern old-time tunes, with an occasional nod to New England or Celtic styles. Its Albuquerque jam now meets free on third Saturday afternoons at High and Dry Brewing on Adams Street NE.

In 2012 the dance moved to the Square Dance Center. The society cited many reasons and named two as the most important: secure storage for its equipment and its own key to the building. “As much as we love the Heights Community Center,” the society wrote, “these factors make it feasible for us to continue our dance series.” The Albuquerque dance now keeps its fourth Sunday afternoons there.

Musicians who made room for dancers

The society began in 1983 as the New Mexico Folk Music Society. A small group of musicians founded it and registered it with the state as a nonprofit corporation. By 1992, in the society’s own words, the musicians “recognized the importance of dance both kinetically and monetarily,” and the name became the New Mexico Folk Music and Dance Society, FolkMADS for short. Federal recognition as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt corporation followed in 1994.

From that small group it has grown to more than 300 members and an annual budget exceeding $50,000. It sponsors contra dances in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Taos, along with Megabands, concerts, and camps. The Santa Fe dances run on first and third Saturday evenings at Odd Fellows Hall on Cerrillos Road.

The society’s September 2026 calendar shows its contra, family, and English country dances and bands at the Albuquerque Folk Festival on Saturday, September 26, from ten in the morning to nine at night. The next afternoon, September 27, at two o’clock, the fourth-Sunday dance met as usual on Hawkins Street.