About four times a year for the past 15 or so, folk dancers from throughout the region have congregated for regular Contra Dances on Bainbridge Island.

But there’s one shindig that the dancers, musicians and callers all look forward to, longtime organizer/musician/dancer Jane Lanstra said. And that’s the Earth Day dance — slated for April 19 this year, once again at the Island Center Hall, 8395 Fletcher Bay Road on Bainbridge.

“It’s the usual dance party, it’s just we have one special day for Earth Day — an annual event that all of us look forward to,” Landstra said. “It’s a party.”

The Contra Dance — with the Kitsap band Country Capers (with Landstra on fiddle and piano) providing the tunes and caller Sherry Nevins leading at 8 p.m. — will be preceded by a family fun dance that starts at 5 p.m. and a “how-to” Contra workshop at 7:30 p.m.

But, chances are, that primer won’t be too direly in need.

“It’s as easy as walking, or opening a door,” Landstra quipped about the dance.

Then again, she’s had a lifetime of Contra experience, growing up in a musically diverse family with parents who taught the dance to playing contra in pubs and dance halls across the Pacific Northwest, into Canada and across the country with the Country Capers over the past two decades.

Contra is a dance form similar to line-dancing, only a lot less complicated and set to a more rustic, worldly soundtrack, involving old English, New English, celtic and Quebecois tunes.

It’s been said that if you can count to eight and remember a few choreographed steps, then you can Contra Dance. And if you know how to party, you’re even better off.

“I think it’s fun, that’s No. 1, it’s always been,” Landstra said. “It’s always been an activity to celebrate with.”

Whether it’s celebrating the globe on account of Earth Day or the fact that it’s Saturday and the work week is over, or the fact that there’s a venue for old-school heel-stopping and rug-cutting, all revelers are welcome at the Contra Dance. WU