Hopefully fairly straightforward for a contra corners dance – it's USP is that it does contra corners all four ways, which can be fun!
| A1 | Neighbour balance and swing (8) |
| A2 | Long lines forward and back (4) 1st couple start contra corners: allemande right just over halfway to first corner and allemande left with them (4) |
| B1 | 1st couple allemande right 3/4 and allemande left with second corner (4) 1st couple allemande right 3/4 and allemande left with third corner (4) |
| B2 | 1st couple allemande right 3/4 and allemande left with fourth corner (4) 1st couple swing and face next couple |
Alternate with 2nd couple leading
Dancing with an odd number of couples simplifies end effects.
As usual when calling contra corners, it's worth establishing who all these people are going to be before starting the figure. Here's where they are (I'd probably only describe the "where" bit in the call):
| Corner | Where | Men/Larks | Women/Robins |
|---|---|---|---|
| First | Diagonally right | Current same-role | Next same-role |
| Second | Diagonally left | Next same-role | Current same-role |
| Third | Next to on left | Next neighbour | Current neighbour |
| Fourth | Next to on right | Current neighbour | Next neighbour |
When not the active couple, you alternate the direction you turn someone from – first right diagonal, then left, then right, then left. If you're at the end of the set at this point then that means you'll only turn every other time – it seems it's easy to get over enthusiastic, turn someone twice in succession and break the pattern!
An interesting property of this dance is that it's best done with an odd number of couples – if so then then the active couple doing contra corners will always have all four corners available to dance with.
- In the first time through, the active couple are in progressed places, so the 1st couple closest to the top of the set have a couple above them, and the 1st couple closest the bottom of the set have an inactive couple below them.
- The next time through, the 2nd couple is active, and so above the 1st couple in progressed places; the 2nd couple closest the top can dance with an inactive couple above them, while the 2nd couple closest the bottom have their own 1st couple to dance with below.
Written because most of the contra corner dances I had in my deck had somewhat unsatisfying moves to get the set proper (usually involving a half figure of 8, which isn't a great contra move) so that contra corners can be done with people of the other role – why not dance with everyone? I'd just written Blazing Fox, so was thinking about such things. A 4-way contra corners doesn't leave a lot of time for much else though, so there probably aren't many other ways you can write this dance!
For non-Brits, this might help understand the name.