Name: Contra Dance Party! (Hosted by Portland Intown Contra Dance)
Start: 2026-01-01T19:00:00-05:00
End: 2026-01-01T22:00:00-05:00
Location: State Street Church

Contra Dance Party! (Hosted by Portland Intown Contra Dance)

Join us for a Thursday night dance party with Portland Intown Contra Dance!
We dance (almost) every Thursday night! 🥳
Beginner's lesson at 7 p.m.
Contra dancing from 7:30 'til 10 p.m.
- All ages, all people welcome
- Live music and teaching, with new awesome talent each week
- All dances taught
- Gender-free dance roles
- No partner needed
- New dancers encouraged to come!
💵 Donation: $15-20, with pay what you can option
👀 Get the details: portlandintowncontradance.com

😍 What is Contra dance?
Contra dance is community social dancing, always to live music. 🎻 It's lively, joyful, welcoming, and fun!
Most contra dance figures combine a walking step with hand gestures, and these figures are combined into patterns that repeat throughout dances. Each dance is taught and prompted by a caller (teacher), who tells dancers what figures they should dance when. Though the dance is proscribed, improvisation is encouraged.
No partner is needed — you dance with everyone! Dancers line up in long parallel lines and, in pairs, make their way down that line, dancing with the other pairs of dancers they meet along the way. Our community is diverse and intergenerational, so you know you'll meet a lot of different people as you make your way down the line!
People have been contra dancing since the 17th century — in barns, in kitchens, in dance halls, in churches. The dance form is syncretic, a tradition that evolved when European, Black, and Indigenous dance and music forms met and mixed. It’s uniquely American, constantly evolving, and super, super fun!