Folks interested in the history of contra dancing in New England and upstate New York in the post-World War II era may enjoy watching a series of six videos from this year’s Dance Flurry. I was the moderator, and I started out by commenting on how strange it felt to be part of a panel …
Readers
here probably know of my fondness for the “chestnuts,”
those classic contra dances that have been at the core of the
traditional repertoire. Years ago, I wrote a piece, “So Why Are
They Called Chestnuts?” which was later included in the Cracking
Chestnuts book and which can be
found online.
The person responsible for that term entering our dance vocabulary
was Joan Pelton, who died
on February 15, 2012. She is someone who made a difference.
Today’s Doonesbury is a Flashback to an earlier strip, which reminds us that Zonker is well aware of the social benefits of square dancing. Enjoy!
I called last night at the BIDA dance
in Boston, my first time calling for this Sunday evening series about
which I’ve heard mny good things. It’s not that I’d been playing hard
to get, just that an invitation hadn’t come along before. I was
delighted to be invited, and even happier at the end of the evening.
BIDA is the acronym for Boston
Intergenerational Dance Advocates, an unwieldy name so you
readily understand why they go by their nickname. It’s a young
series, founded in 2008, and unlike some other new dance events, this
one had an intentional goal from the start. The organizers were
looking to fill a niche in the already very full Boston area dance
scene; they wanted to create “an organization which would
strengthen community ties and provide opportunities for dancers,
musicians, callers, and dance organizers to share knowledge and
energy between generations.” They’ve succeeded.
Musician Noah Van Norstrand is part of the Great Bear Trio with his brother, Andrew, and their mother. They play traditional tunes and they play some sets of original and untraditional material They also sponsor the Great Bear Groove, a lively dance event over Memorial Day weekend where I’ll be calling this year. Noah created …
Someone on the SharedWeight discussion group mentioned that Charlottesville, VA, dance organizers had recently started asking callers to include a mixer in the first quarter of each evening’s program. This raised a small buzz of comments about the place of mixers in a program and, more generally, whether organizers should be telling callers what to do. Here, slightly edited, is my response (March 3, 2012).
I’m fascinated by this discussion about mixers. with most of the comments so far indicating that a) the authors don’t like ’em, b) they don’t use them, c) they don’t see the point, and d) dancers don’t like ’em.
This strikes me as another example of people liking what they are accustomed to. One of my caller mentors was Ted Sannella, who usually programmed a mixer as the third dance of an evening; Tony Parkes, also, I believe, puts one there for similar reasons. By this time, the caller can assume that the bulk of the dancers have arrived, and a mixer gives everyone a chance to see everyone else who’s there. Mixers come in all shapes– Sicilian circle, big circle / big set, scattered couples, lines of three… They are a systematic way of taking new couples clinging to each other and mixing them up. They give experienced helpful dancers a chance to learn who’s new, to note that person to ask later in the evening. They add choreographic variety to a program.
Contra dancers today see several hundred people at a gathering and think it’s a large crowd; callers of modern western square dancing, on the other hand, can speak from experience of calling for 700 squares at a time. In 1950, the city of Santa Monica, CA, celebrated its Diamond Jubilee. Lloyd Shaw was invited to …
What’s
in a dance program?
I
was struck once again, as I was planning my English country dance for
Sunday, at the number of variables that get juggled to make a good
program.
You
start out by knowing that you want some simpler dances at the start.
There’s always a good chance that there will be less experienced
dancers and maybe some—hooray!—who have never done this form of
dance before. Those simpler dances give folks a chance to learn some
of the basic terminology, which can be a confusing blur of jargon to
an outsider’s ear: “set and turn single,” crossover mirror
heys,” “half a double figure eight,” and so on.
The
other great thing about simpler dances is that the experienced
dancers can spend more time dancing and less feeling that they need
to help the newcomers.
One Sunday night about six months ago,
I was calling at a community dance an hour from home. Good band of
talented young musicians and a friendly crowd. We had some hard-core
contra dancers—one of whom left early on, perhaps because the first
few dances weren’t challenging enough for his taste—and some
absolute beginners, with a nice mix of ages. One young girl, maybe 4
or 5, apparently comes often; she was dancing with her dad and she
had clearly absorbed the most important things to know: keep smiling,
look at the people around you, keep moving, and hold out your hands.
Later in the evening, second dance after the break, we were down to
short sets, 7 or 8 couples in each. I looked at one line, saw a bunch of adults, and announced Money Musk, a tune
the band had been itching to play and a dance that I knew would be
familiar to many of those present at that time. No sooner had I had
announced the dance than I noticed a different young girl lined up in
another set.
It’s been a busy few days! Three very
different dance events, back to back:
English country dance weekend
I called at Sharpes
Assembly, an English country dance event held
two hours south of Orlando in a historic hotel in Sebring, Florida.
Does that name sound familiar? It’s the same town where where the
annual 12-hour car race is held. This event was a bit mellower. 😉 The venue was advertised as “old Florida,” and it was a lovely change from the Florida of neon and strip malls.
In addition to dance parties on Friday
and Saturday nights and the farewell dance on Sunday, I led one
workshop on dances
set to tunes by Turlough O’Carolan, the great
Irish harper of the 1700s, and another featuring contemporary
choreography, a nod to the many fine dances being composed these
days.
It was a mixed group of dancers,
including some with decades of experience and some who were quite
new. (I’m always amazed that someone new to an activity would sign up
for a full weekend of it… can’t tell whether this is a case of
“fools rush in” or a brave heart.) Fortunately, the
experienced dancers were helpful and the workshop programs included a
few more difficult dances that turned out well.