Harris Lapiroff

Dance

Twenty Years of Dance

October 22, 2026

Dancers holding hands in a big circle, motion-blurred, in a hall with a polished wood floor and a chandelier. At the center a barefoot dancer with long dark hair tied back, wearing a brown t-shirt and a teal patterned skirt, has their back to the camera. — Me (blue skirt, bare feet) at a contra dance in 2008. All photos by Ma’ayan Plaut.

Twenty years ago this month, in my first year of college, someone I had a crush on invited me to a contra dance. We had already missed the beginner workshop, so she gave me an impromptu lesson on how to perform the contra dance swing in Tappan Square. I was immediately captivated and consumed.

I grew up feeling physically awkward and out of touch with my body. The grace I finally felt able to summon while contra dancing was intoxicating. (Though in retrospect I suspect I was less graceful in those early years than I imagined.) Contra became a gateway to other forms of movement. I dabbled in swing, blues, and fusion. I did some waltz. I joined a rapper sword team for a time. I’ve dipped a toe into Scottish country dance and Scandinavian dances and who can remember what else. But contra dance – as well as, more recently, its close relative English country dance – has continued to feel like home.

It’s hard to overstate how important contra dance has been to me. I don’t know how to love something without wanting to see every side of it, so I became an organizer. The events I’ve organized (Romp, YDW, BIDA) have been some of the proudest accomplishments of my life, ephemeral as they are. I learned how to call dances early on. (And then, much later, I learned how to call dances well.) I joined the board of a folk music and dance camp in the woods.

The majority of my friends in adulthood have been people I dance with and, with only one or two exceptions, every romantic partner as well. It’s given me a deeper connection to my body, but also to music and the incredible people who love to play it live. I’ve built real intergenerational connections through it. I have friends in most major cities around the country because of it. It’s a community I can see myself growing old in and I can’t think of any other way I’d rather meet people and make friends.

Social dance has given me a way to pass the time, a community to rely on, a social portal anywhere I go, and – often – even purpose. What an incredible twenty years it has been.