Between CDSS and the Square Dance History Project, my life has been more than full of late. We’ve added some wonderful footage to the SDHP site, including two clips filmed in Kentucky in 1963, material for which I’ve been waiting more than two years to obtain permission. Here’s a link to the four-couple square and …
Ralph Page gave this title to a regular column in his Northern Junket magazine, in which he shared information he had gleaned from looking through old newspapers in New Hampshire and Vermont. For those of us interested in dance history, he’s absolutely right. Late last month, CDSS member Karen Mueller-Harder heard a wonderful story on …
A project that has been a big part of my life took a giant step forward today: we launched the Square Dance History Project’s digital library and website. This project, with financial support from organizations representing both traditional and modern square dancers, takes a broad look at square dancing in its many forms as well …
Two middle school dances within a week, no band, just me and my iPod at the Hulbert Outdoor Center, which hosts groups throughout the year. I’m a regular on the program for several of these schools, and it’s fun to return to the same venue with some of the same adults—teachers or HOC staff—and a …
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 …
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.