It’s a dark and cold Saturday evening, but inside the San Juan Island Grange Hall it’s bright, warm and inviting. The string instruments bring you back to another time—an old-time. The accordion and piano chime in, its players lost in sounds of the past.

Thirty people filter in from the cold, shedding layers and lining up to tap their toes and dosey doe.

Contra dancing happens every Monday night at the Grange Hall, 7:30 p.m., with the occasional dance added each month, it’s the perfect winter activity to rid those seasonal blues.

“It’s a break from contemporary life,” said contra dance organizer and caller Mike Cohen. “It’s really almost the dance of life, a chance to be connected with everyone. That’s why it’s catching on.”

And Cohen’s not kidding. Contra isn’t a type of partner dance, rather a kind where you dance with everyone. The dances begin with couples, and each couple moves up and down the hall, forming four person sets. A dance isn’t over until you’ve touched hands with every person in the room. Although this is the structure of each dance, there are dozens of different dances with variations of moves, making for a multiple dance evening.

This traditional style of dancing has been around since the 1700s, and is a part of San Juan history that’s presented during historic reenactments at English Camp throughout the summer. Contra dancing was used for community building in agriculture based societies, and a popular activity at community socials when grange halls began popping up across the U.S. in the 1860s, Cohen said.

Cohen brought contra dancing back to San Juan in the early 1990s, and has been a dancer and caller since 1945. Among his many accolades, Cohen’s a program director of the Institute of Global Education, and is an applied eco-pscychologist who promotes educating, counseling and healing through nature.

Offering free contra dancing is instep with many of his nature-centered philosophies.

“Consider the universe or the planet being a dance. This is what we’re made for,” he said. “Contra dance is getting people in touch with the same thing out there in nature, but in here.”

Jan Newton, an annual fall-semester professor at Friday Harbor Labs has been coming to the contra dances on San Juan since its resurgence in the early ‘90s.

“It does feel like an organism, like this big entity,” she said. “It has a flow and everyone’s touching hands. There’s that connection, and a heart to it.”

At the Nov. 22 contra dance, Cohen called out “dosey doe,” with a tune in his voice. Hands clasped genuinely with strangers and friends alike, the community’s faces smiled.

Although the caller gave explicit instructions, many were out of step. It seemed the more missed steps, the greater the laughs. Skirts flew, boots stomped, layers shed as this bizarre looking brigade of dancers pranced through the halls in controlled chaos.

If life is a dance and the universe chaotic, contra dancing is a fine example.

Dances are held every Monday night, 7:30 at the Grange Hall. All dances are taught and free. For more information visit www.contradanceband.com