A Next Phase in Covid-19 Precautions

Following our 3-month pilot of alternating mask-optional dances, Brooklyn Contra will continue with alternating mask-optional dances for a further three months until the end of the year.

For the remainder of the year the masked/mask optional dance schedule will be:

• October 1: Mask Optional

• October 15th: Masked

• November 3-5th: ContraShock, see website

• Nov 19th: Masked

• Dec. 3rd: Mask Optional

• Dec. 17th: Mask Optional

We have also at this time chosen to suspend our policy of checking vaccination status at dances.

We’d like to thank everyone who participated in the pilot, who provided feedback in person or via our online form, and who came out to dance with us all summer!

Mask Optional Dancing Pilot Announcement

Starting with our dance on Sunday, June 4, Brooklyn Contra will pilot half our dances as mask and vaccine optional through August 2023. This means for one dance a month that dancers and performers will not be required to wear a mask and that we will not check vaccine status; we will still provide KN-95 masks at the door for anyone who wishes to wear one. At the end of August we will evaluate the pilot, taking into account community input, and determine how we will move forward. Please see our pilot schedule below:

• 3-month pilot

  • Sunday, June 4: Masks Optional

  • Sunday, June 18: Masks Required

  • Sunday, July 2: Masks Optional

  • Sunday, July 16: Masks Required

  • Sunday, August 6: Masks Optional

  • Sunday, August 20: Masks Required

• Schedule post-pilot

  • Sunday, September 3: Masks Required

  • Sunday, September 17Optional [outdoor dance]

Brooklyn Contra’s mission is to build a broad audience for contra dancing and it is our sincere hope that by hosting both fully-masked and mask-optional dances, we will provide options for dancers to participate in line with their own risk tolerance. 

We always encourage community feedback; dancers can provide their thoughts using this feedback form on the Brooklyn Contra website through August 31. 

On Emerging, and Emergent Futures: “Post”-Pandemic Strategic Planning for Brooklyn Contra

“The ability to shift from reacting against the past to leaning into and presencing an emerging future is probably the single most important leadership capacity today.”

― C. Otto Scharmer, Leading from the Emerging Future: From Ego-System to Eco-System Economies

As Brooklyn Contra closed out 2022 with our first New Year’s Eve dance in three years, we saw how the ways the pandemic forced us to slow down and adapt also created room for us to grow as an organization. We are excited to share a bit about our journey so far, and look forward to collaborating with you to create a more participatory, joyful NYC through dance in the future. 

We have emerged from the lockdown era with higher dance attendance, a cohesive and stable (if sadly smaller) organizing team, and a refreshed vision. Two years without dancing and another of tentative re-entry allowed us to take a step back from the frenzy of event organizing. With that time we instead reflected on the “why” of our contra dance organizing work, our ambitions for the organization, and what it would take to get there.

From conversations during park jams, zoom meetings and rooftop waltzes came a desire to build a broader organization that more directly serves, our vision of “a city where culture is participatory, created by the people who experience it, working with traditions and evolving them across and between generations.” We knew we weren’t going back to being a once- or twice-a-month dance-only organization, but rather would move forward to become an organization that nourishes the roots of contra dancing culture; evolves with our values and the times; welcomes new audiences; and works with similar traditions beyond the contra dancing world to create a flourishing ecosystem of participatory culture.

We set out on the most comprehensive annual planning process in our organization's history. We engaged our volunteers, community, and members and settled into a multi-meeting 6-week process to generate a set of 3-year objectives (tangible but aspirational desires) for our organization and associated annual key results (measurable mileposts on the way to those aspirations). You can see those objectives and key results below — we hope they provide a fun look at what we’re planning for the next year and beyond. This is also a look into our evolution from a shoestring organization to something more formal(and formidable), balancing our entrepreneurial spirit with a stable and solid foundation.

As we move from reacting to the past towards a more dynamic future, we’re so excited to co-create it along with the NYC community. We welcome your thoughts, your membership support, your volunteer time, and, most of all, your presence on the dance floor! See you soon!

Brooklyn Contra 3-year objectives: 2023-2025

I. We will build a broad audience for Contra Dancing in NYC

II. We will build a collaborative team and structure that propels our mission forward.

III. We will produce events that nourish and serve a vibrant, diverse, and evolving dance community.

IV. We will pioneer collaborations across folk traditions and beyond

V. We will cultivate financial resilience to support our mission

2023 Objectives and Key Results:

I. We will build a broad audience for Contra Dancing in NYC:

• We will work to increase NYC’s awareness of Contra as a vibrant evolving tradition with a comprehensive outreach plan

• We will assess our dancer experience and create a plan to improve it over the next two years

II. We will build a collaborative team and structure that propels our mission forward.

• We will create more clearly defined roles for organizers and board members, and actively seek out individuals to join this fulfilling and joyful work.

• We will find and build tools to keep our planning team organized and communicating.

• We will develop practices and policies to give us structure and support if difficult times or conversations arise.

III. We will produce events that nourish and serve a vibrant, diverse, and evolving dance community.

• We will provide formal and informal opportunities for members of our community to advance their skills as dancers, musicians, callers, and volunteers at more than 50 events in 2023.

• New and returning events will include callers development programs, jams, workshops for contra dancers, advanced dances, park dances, and bi-monthly regular dances. 

• We will extend our booking invitations to an even wider contra community, bringing more new-to-us talent from outside the NYC area into our dance hall.

IV. We will pioneer collaborations across folk traditions and beyond.

• Collaborative events in 2023 will include: 

• 2 cross-cultural dances

• An expanded Contrashock 2023

• 2 family dances

• Returning and expanded sponsored dances at Porch Stomp, The Brooklyn Bridge Harvest Festival and more

V. We will cultivate financial resilience to support our mission.

• We will develop our membership program to ensure self-sufficiency as an organization.

• We will continue to seek grant funding to expand our programmatic offerings in order to keep our pricing accessible and pay our musicians and community spaces fairly.

• We will create a 3-year plan to invest in our dancers’ experience, our hall, and our ability to host outdoor events.