FolkMADS sponsors Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Taos contra dances, concerts, camps, and other special events. "Contra" dances include contras, squares, mixers, and couple dances. Unless noted on the calendar, admission is $7 for members, $8 for nonmembers. Students with ID receive half price admission and children up to 12 years of age are free. You need not come with a partner. Free instruction for beginners half an hour before the dance starts. Dances are smoke-free and alcohol-free. Children and teens are encouraged to participate if supervised by an adult.

Albuquerque Dances: 1st and 3rd Saturday contra dances, 7:30-10.30 p.m. Second Sunday Dance (English and Contra), 7:00-9:30 p.m. Heights Community Center, 823 Buena Vista SE (south of Lead/Coal).

Santa Fe Dances: 2nd and 4th Saturday contra dances and some 5th Saturday English Country dances, 7:30-10:30 p.m. Odd Fellows Hall, 1125 Cerrillos Road (south of Cordova Drive on the western side of Cerrillos).

Taos Dances: 3rd Saturdays, call for details, 776-1580.

ABQ Megaband: Albuquerque Megaband practice is held the Tuesday before the 3rd Saturday dance, at various locations. All acoustic musicians are welcome. Visit the Megaband page for more info and to add your email address to the listserv. Contact Bruce Thomson, 268-6003, or email Jane. We are again looking for a "permanent" home. Check the current calendar for this month's location.

Santa Fe Jam Sessions: Santa Fe Community Band holds practice at the ODD Fellows Hall on ODD (1^st and 3^rd) Wednesdays at 7 p.m. (contact Gary Papenhagen, 242-1104). Slow jam on the 2nd Thursday at 7 p.m. at Katherine Bueler & Gary Schiffmiller's house (995-1125). Beginning and experienced musicians all welcome.

Quick Links

ABQ Dance Committee Meeting

The next meeting will be Saturday, January 24, from 1 to 3 p.m., at the home of Bob Cornish and Linda Starr.
509 Aliso Dr. NE.
255-6037 or 261-7648

Caller’s Corner

Hey Folks,
    I really appreciated the opportunity to call the Nov. 1 dance at the Heights.  Though I was really tired by the end, I had fun being on the stage with the Virginia Creepers and enjoyed the responses from the dancers.  The comments I heard were: "It was a fun dance; some of the dances in the first part were a little too long; a fun variety of dances; and it all worked."  On the evaluations - thank you for providing me with your feedback. I take all of this to mean that it was a successful dance and that the dancers would like me to keep calling.
    One thing all of the community should recognize about callers, and not just me, is the time and effort callers put into the dances.  It's hard work being up there on the stage, keeping the dancers dancing and the musicians jiving out those fantastic tunes that they have lined up with the caller especially for our listening and dancing pleasure.  Not only does calling involve the time on the stage, but the time to choose a dance program that will be different, enjoyable and rock the hall with enthusiastic power.  Those hoots and hollers really spark up the band and the caller.  Keep 'em comin'.  The caller engages in hours practicing the dances beforehand to make sure they work, and to hopefully correct any kinks in the calls that may lead to confusion on the floor during the walk-through, and more hours working out the timing and memorizing the dances.
    Besides dancing and having fun, dancers have another job out there on the floor - to be helpful to beginners.  As a dancer, and as a caller, I am constantly seeing a lot of the experienced dancers dancing mostly with the other experienced dancers.  We should take it upon ourselves to stray from our normal partners and dancing friends now and then; we should split up the beginners, who learn best when they are physically brought into our fold, and when we help them by dancing with them.  Sometimes, my partner and I will offer to separate new couples so they can dance with more enjoyment and satisfaction and learn from experienced dancers.  While you're dancing with them, give these newcomers a tip on swinging, the do-sa-do, allemanding or eye contact for a gypsy meltdown.  Usually, these newbie couples are glad to get the suggestion and they won't take it as an affront to their dancing.  They know they need all the help they can get.
    Keep on dancin'.
Linda Starr

A Note from Michael Combs
Funny how, while the average folk dancer grows ever longer in tooth, our sets are rather short lately.....

I've been around long enough to see seasons of ebb and flow in the dance halls, and am confident we'll see longer sets again. But unless we attract and keep younger dancers, we are headed the direction of dinosaurs, bell bottoms, and the square dance clubs.

    I started contra-dancing in 1987, in my early thirties, in Puget Sound. I'd sit on the outer fringe of the mega-band in Ballard's Golden Melody Tavern, and while the fiddling excited me more than the dancing  at first, I've become an enthusiastic dancer. Much later I began to call, and studied some history of folk dancing in our part of the world.

    In the 40's  another “revivalist”-type American Folk dance movement gained momentum, and by the 60's there were thousands of dance clubs around the country. At some of these outdoors dances, up to 15,000 dancers would dance to a single caller! But today, the median age of these club dancers is in their eighties. Like the Kiwanis, Lions, Optimists, Odd-Fellows and Masons, they had their day, but failed to inspire young people. Was it just due to the “generation gap”of that day, or is it an ongoing challenge that we –now older ourselves--(oh, once-rebellious youth of yesteryear!) must now face?

    Our folk dancing roots evolved in a time when our forbears' lives were so very different from our own: Isolated, with limited opportunities for socializing and courting, they typically worked and lived amongst the same small group of relatives and neighbors. Conditions could be grueling. The infrequent festivals & feast-days were a tremendous outlet of pent-up energy. Stories of dances till dawn and sometimes later, babies sleeping in another room, still survive.

    Today we're more likely to be overly-socialized, frazzled, world-weary, and with a bewildering range of choices at night. Add in Netflix, You-Tube, airline travel, cell-phones, hectic traffic, and it is clear that we're dealing with a different mammal altogether.

    Can folk danse and folk music survive in the face of the annihilation of genuine folk life?  With mobility, quick-fried relationships, a roster of “places that I've lived” that can look like a well-punched dance card, modular, take-apart lives where any component—mate, work, home—is subject to instant replacement, separated or estranged from families, neighbors and co-workers, how can a non-microwaveable activity like traditional dance and music continue? And should it, and if so, why?

    I've heard that in Portland, Ore, Austin, Tx, and Ashville, N.C. that the dances are still attracting young blood. How can we avoid following the New Mexican Whooping Cranes, the square dance club, and the Fraternal Order of Elks and Mooses?

    Is there something we're doing that we'd better stop doing, or is there something we're not doing that we'd sure better hop to it and start doing?

    Dating and courting is an integral part of dance, always will be. For one thing, if whippersnappers have the choice to contra dance with people their grandparents' age or swing dance with youngsters, guess which they'll choose?

    Do we go out of our way to welcome newcomers of whatever age to our halls, especially trying to make them feel at home, perhaps introducing them to someone ele? Or do we hustle over to chew the fat with our buddies, leaving newbies to find their own way?

    As a caller, can I modify my program for the evening, regardless of how excited I was about calling some new, hotshot, challenging dances, when I spot  a good-sized batch of beginners? Am I willing to live with the glares of “expert” dancers, who want something more vigorous & flashy?

    Isn't dancing more about connecting with each other anyway? Would we be “pushing the river” to try to attract people who, if left alone, may come home, wagging their tails?

    One great aspect of the dance-bands where I got introduced that I would love to see here: While  the “main course” musician(s) were hired and miked, they were nearly always accompanied by a mega-band of sorts. Those of us new to this type of music located ourselves at the fringes, while closer to the “big man” musicians were their invited friends, people who'd been playing with them for years and knew their repertoire, knew how to work together musically. This arrangement added  tons of dynamism and energy to the dances there, and I never once saw a sloppy beginner musician throw off or disturb the dance music.

    Well, the deadline for articles is today so I'll have to grind this axe another day. Please share thoughts with me on this topic, e-mail me at combsjmichael@yahoo.com .

Dan Levenson in Concert
Presented by the SW Pickers

Sunday, January 4, 2009  • 7PM

Covenant Presbyterian Church in ABQ
9315 Candelaria Rd NE

$ 10 for SW Pickers
$ 15 for non-members

Find more information about Dan here:
http://oldtimemusic.us/

emma’s revolution

& L@SOTR@S
IN CONCERT!
SATURDAY, FEB. 7, 7 PM
Albuquerque Mennonite Church
1300 Girard, NE
TICKETS only $10 in advance, sold at:
• Peace Center, 202 Harvard, SE
• Peacecraft, 3215 Central, NE
• Pueblito Latino, 1617 Carlisle, SE
•  Bookworks, 4022 Río Grande, NW