Country Dance and Song Society

Lifetime contribution Award 2004

Country Dance and Song Society presented its Lifetime Contribution Award to Boston dance leader Larry Jennings at a Cambridge dance on Thursday, May 27, 2004.

Larry Jennings was honored for his many accomplishments in the field of contra dancing. A dancer and caller at various points in his life, he is best known for the nationwide influence he has had through his writings, a series of discussion sessions attended by callers and organizers, and his individualized critiques of dance callers. Originator of the phrase "zesty contras," Larry promulgated a style of contra dancing featuring strong connections among dancers, meticulous phrasing, vigorous swings, and smooth transitions from one figure to another. This style of energetic contra dancing has spread around the country in the past two decades, modeled in part on the series that Larry helped shape, the Cambridge VFW dance sponsored by the New England Folk Festival Association, NEFFA.

Larry was presented with his award at a so-called NEFFA Night at the Thursday Night dance series at the VFW, a regular event that features several different callers. In addition to affecting organizers with his ideas, Larry has had a great impact on callers throughout New England and the United States, so this particular evening seemed an appropriate time and place. C.D.S.S. Executive and Artistic Director Brad Foster will present the award, accompanied by several members of the organization's Governing Board.

In earlier years, Larry was an avid dancer, a member of the Black Jokers morris team as well as an enthusiastic contra and square dancer. The publication in 1983 of his first book, Zesty Contras, marked a turning point in contemporary contra dancing. Larry collected some 500 dances and introduced them with what he himself termed "a provocative explanatory text, " a series of 14 mini-lectures examining various aspects of contra choreography, organization, music, and instruction. Callers who turned to the book as a handy compendium of dances also found themselves reading a series of essays that touched on virtually all aspects of this form of social dance. "You may not have always agreed with Larry," said one New England caller, "but his strong opinions forced you to examine your own ideas and to think more clearly about what you were doing."

Along with fellow Boston area callers Ted Sannella and Dan Pearl, Larry co-authored a "Contra Connection" column in the CDSS News from 1988 through 1995; this column examined various aspects of contra dancing from the perspectives of three well-known figures in the contra dance community.

In the spring of 2004, NEFFA published his long-awaited second book, "Give-and-Take," which contains 628 dances. In this volume, Larry includes more provocative remarks, along with "exhortative essays and arcane analyses." In this new book, fully half of the contents are essays and minutes from discussion sessions. Detailed information about the contents of both "Give-and-Take" and "Zesty Contras" can be found at .

As Dan Pearl and Shelagh Ellman-Pearl wrote in the Foreword to this new volume, "As long as we have known Larry, he has been consumed with all things Contra Dance: dance sequences, calling skills, administration, styling, the stuff that happens on the dance floor, what makes a dance the "place to be," and so on. Larry also has an unquenchable desire to share, educate and enlighten, and, with his enthusiasm for contra dancing, it is a powerful combination."

Larry Jennings is the second person to receive the C.D.S.S. Lifetime Contribution Award, following English country dance leader Helene Cornelius. Country Dance and Song Society, founded in 1915, is the nation's leading organization promoting English and Anglo-American music, dance and song.

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