Beautiful Folk Dancing

To get this video, visit https://www.createspace.com/205719
I made this little movie many years ago when I was first starting as a filmmaker. It was filmed in a New Hampshire town one cold fall evening. My goal was to make a short without any narration track. To see my other work, visit www.thehoffmancollection.com.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Square dance
• Square dancing
• New England
• dancing
• folk dancing
• country dancing
• Contra dancing
• history
• New Hampshire
• Maine
• Vermont
• Massachusetts
• old-time
• new music
• old
• timey
• old time
• traditional
• Contra dance
• accordian
• harmonica
• new
• hampshire

[leopants]

Thanks Mr. Hoffman - this is truly amazing to see.

Leo Francis

Melbourne, Australia

[allinaday]

@leopants And thank you for your comment. I made this movie when I was 22-year-old and a camera weighed 49 pounds and I managed to dance with it. I still love the film myself. And the dance caller became one of the greatest Contra dance callers in America.

David Hoffman - filmmaker

[alohawaidi]

This looks like Nelson NH. The caller is my father, Dudley Laufman. I can see Jerry Weene, fiddle, Nicholas S. Howe, fiddle, Sylvia Miscoe, accordion, I think that it may be Kay Gilbert on piano.

[allinaday]

@alohawaidi - Thank you for commenting. It is nice to make your acquaintance. I was a very young man when I filmed your father on that evening and I do love the movie I made. It is real, and simple, and has wonderful music, and is well edited considering I was just 23 years old when I did it and the camera weighed 49 pounds.

David Hoffman -- filmmaker

[dbadagna]

So nice to see this! It's interesting to see a contra dance done to a jig, which one never hears in Appalachia where reels rule. What year was this?

[allinaday]

@dbadagna - It was 1964.

David Hoffman - filmmaker

[vaaldemarhoff]

I love that music, what is the name of the caller?

Waldemar Hoff

Poland

[angher2010]

quite good to know the culture at that time~love from China

[THEGGITtheELDER]

WOW! nostalgia by the bucket load, what a pity things have to change and we all get old.

Good clean fun and no need to go to the gym!

I guess some of the dancers will still be around, some look like we did in the 60s, great days.

[PaluaWahine]

As a long-time contra dancer, I loved this. :) The caller was a bit quick, but I guess he wasn't what I'm used to. LOVE this. :)

[simonsonjh]

From Nancy (the girl frozen in the last scene):

I am pretty sure it is not in Nelson. I don't see any Tolmans and they were always in Nelson. Could this have been in Dublin, NH? Nicholas S. Howe and Joe Ryan are the fiddlers. Joe always had what he called a "fiddler's sneer" when he fiddled. He enjoyed fiddling even if it did make him sneer. There are people in this video who danced for the first time in May 1966, so this is then or later. Doug Cox looks older than he did in 1964.

[riverstrat]

Cool Video !

[6thfifer]

This isnt nelson. Im not sure where it is but its not nelson. Looks like a good dance though.

[arseparts1]

this is great,you could say it is dancing anarchy.Wonderful seeing people doing their own thing in what is supposed to be sequence dancing.Oh the joy of trying to do something you haven't a clue about,more please.

[jmontgomery7577]

@uptonsavoie I wouldn't worry about the fiddler. He may just be one of those taciturn types who doesn't show his enjoyment in his face. 

[jmontgomery7577]

I love this! I love the music, the dancing, the camaraderie!