Contra Dance with Northern Spy

Northern Spy is a contra dance band based in the Upper Connecticut River Valley of New Hampshire and Vermont. Along with its regular caller, David Millstone, the band celebrated its 31st anniversary at its monthly dance on November 12, 2011, in Norwich, VT, with a larger than usual crowd.

In addition to the regular dancers and those casual dancers who turned out for the festivities that night, there also were 85 dance organizers from the CDSS-supported Puttin' On the Dance conference, taking place in nearby White River Junction. For more info about the conference:

http://www.puttinonthedance.org/

and a report on the CDSS Blog:

http://blog.cdss.org/

And just to make the evening even more fun, we were joined at the dance by a group of graduate students from Dartmouth College (most of whom had not done this kind of dancing before), and a large contingent of high school juniors (ditto) from the Mountain School, in Vershire, VT. In all, the crowd numbered nearly 250. Some of these dancers were heard to say, during the dessert break, "I've never had so much fun in my whole life!"

What made the evening work so well? The many young dancers brought lots of energy to the hall. We also had a large number of experienced dancers eager to invite the newcomers onto the dance floor, so that we didn't have large clumps of newcomers dancing together. Finally, the program early on stuck with simple dances, which meant that the newcomers could learn gradually and the more experienced dancers could simply enjoy dancing without feeling the need to offer too much assistance.

The video shows excerpts from some of the evening's program. Interested viewers may read a more detailed account of the evening. including a complete listing of the program, here:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/7an886z

Musicians are Bill Shepard and Andy Stewart, fiddles; Rick Barrows, mandolin and mandola; David Murray, flute and whistle; Mary Jo Slattery, guitar; and Carol Compton, piano and accordion.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• contra
• contra dance
• Northern Spy
• David Millstone