DUMMERSTON — On Sunday, Dec. 21, Simba continues its 25th year of playing together by celebrating the winter solstice.
The annual music and dance party takes place at 7 p.m. at the Evening Star Grange in Dummerston Center. Join the band and your friends and neighbors in dance to light up the year's longest night.
The band started by playing a 1989 benefit on the Brattleboro Common to shut down Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant; they called themselves the No Nukes Band. That group became Simba, and 25 years later, they've rocked dance floors, lawns, and small town gazebos all around southern Vermont and New Hampshire.
Simba has played weddings, parties, summer concerts, benefits, and the greatest dance parties of all, the summer and winter solstice celebrations.
The band will play music to make you move: funk, reggae, Latin, worldbeat, soca-calypso, ska, jazz and blues; and features blazing horns and scorching percussion.
Rupa Cousins will lead a movement meditation. The band dedicates this event to peace, love, and harmony all across Mother Earth, with special thanks to all the dancers who have come out to move to the music over the years.
The band's original bass player, Eric Rhomberg, will sit in for this event. Other members performing are Bob Stabach (sax, flute), Dan De Walt (keyboard, steel drum, trombone), Derrik Jordan (guitar, percussion, violin, vocals), Steve Sonntag (trumpet, percussion), Steve Leicach (congas, talking drum, percussion) and Johnny Yuma (drums, vocals).