Hip to be square...dancing

Across the country, the traditional art of contra dancing is enjoying a shot of youthful energy from a new generation attracted to its throwback lack of pretension and sense of community. Where the similarly retro-tinted swing dance revival in the 1990s infused late nights with martinis and a smoky elegance, a contra dance party is typically a non-alcoholic affair held on early Sunday evenings in rented church halls and social clubs.

Contra pivots on a simpler skill set than swing, and involves contact with more people than even the closely related square dance. Dancers in pairs form two parallel lines and move through a sequence of dances. The progression simultaneously moves down one queue and up the other so that each couple eventually pairs up with every other couple. A caller guides the room through the patterns from the stage, where a band, often sitting, plays songs that can stretch longer than 10 minutes.

The term "contra," she says, is the anglicized version of the French contre (in opposition to). Contemporary contra draws on diverse sources: English country dance, court dance in France and colonial variations from Eastern Canada, Quebec and the northeastern United States. It has spread as far south as Kentucky and as far west as Vancouver.

the nature of contra dance, Mr. Cameron says, forces everybody to mingle. "The younger folk tend to like to dance with each other, which we understand, but everyone interacts along the lines and between dances even if we don't partner with younger folk all the time."

For those younger folk, the appeals of contra are myriad.

There's the absence of snobbery. "Especially when you're first learning, everyone's messing up a lot. It's a pretty unself-conscious kind of dancing, so you realize no one else knows what they're doing," Ms. Sarquhar-McDonnell says.

It's "flirtation and contact" without consequence, says

Ms. Lounder of the Smokin' Contra Band.