Instructor: Bill Olson
All Levels
There are few better ways of building a musical community than to start a local dance, either regular or occasional. We’re talking a community dance or “barn dance” where everyone is welcome regardless of age or experience. To make this happen in your community you need musicians, a place to do it, and most of all a dance leader to teach and call the dances.
The dance leader also communicates with the band, makes suggestions about tunes and keeps an eye out on the dance floor to make sure everyone is doing OK. The dances are simple and fun and you don’t need a vast repertoire. Learning to actually call a dance is a lot about timing, but leading a whole evening of dancing requires knowledge of how to set up, how long to run it, how to judge the crowd, what to do if the whole thing “blows up”, etc. We will cover all this and maybe more. All this traditional music is dance music and involving musicians WITH a dance really helps them understand the music more thoroughly.
*Go back to your community and start a dance!*