I was inspired by a project demonstrating sorting algorithms with folk dances to write a contra dance that worked along the same principle. I was first called by Cindy Harris in Pittsburgh and subsequently adjusted based on her suggestions and those of Nils Fredland, who has also called it.

Bubble Network by Greg Dyke

The rule is: each time there is a swing, the taller person must “lead” and emerge on the left hand side of the swing, regardless of gender (avoid gender-neutral swings as they will make the exit harder)

  • A1: In a ring of four, balance and swing your neighbour on the side
  • A2: Circle left 3 places and swing whoever is with you on the side (i.e the person you didn’t swing previously)
  • B1: in a line of 4 walk down the hall. The dancers in the middle of the line turn as a couple, back up the hall, bend and form a circle [at this point, the tallest two people of each set will be on the left side as seen from the stage - possibly in the walkthrough let people on the right know they will be progressing down whereas the people on the left will be progressing up]
  • B2: balance, petronella twirl, balance, and california twirl to new neighbours

Run for N iterations (where N is the number of couples in the set) (plus 1 or 2 times for mistakes)

B2-last time through: balance, petronella turn, and swing the person across the set from you (not on the side!). Open up facing to the left as seen from the stage. You now have a line of people sorted from tallest (at the top) to shortest at the bottom (which should presumably be entertaining on its own, even for people who are not computer scientists).

3 unusual aspects:

  • gender/role is not preserved
  • partner is not preserved, even within a single time through
  • direction of movement is not preserved (and the tallest and shortest people will spend at least the last half of the dance out at the top/bottom)