DUMMERSTON — On Saturday, April 21, the Village Dance Series is inviting the public to a community dance in celebration of New England Dancing Masters' 30 years of collecting and publishing traditional dances and singing games for children and communities.
The dance will be held at the Evening Star Grange, 1008 East-West Rd, in East Dummerston. There will be a pot luck dinner at 5:30 p.m. and a dance (free admission) from 6:30 to 9:30 pm.
The four New England Dancing Masters - Andy Davis, Mary Cay Brass, and Mary Alice and Peter Amidon - will be calling and playing (accordions and piano) along with guest fiddler (and Village Dance regular) Laurie Indenbaum, according to a news release.
This community dance will be filmed by Michael Hanish and Alan Dater to be used in NEDM's ongoing effort to document and promote traditional American community dance. Attendees will be asked to sign a waiver in lieu of admission for the use of any footage in which they may appear.
There will be a break with baked goods made by Robin Davis and a folktale told by Mary Alice and Peter Amidon.
In the 1980s, before they founded New England Dancing Masters, Davis, Brass, and the Amidons had been regulars, both as dancers and musicians, at the contra dances in East Putney, Northfield, Mass., and Nelson, N.H., when they all started teaching elementary school music.
The four music teachers were meeting regularly to exchange dances and songs to use in their elementary school music teaching. They were all learning and adapting traditional dances learned at dances, traditional dance folk camps and from published collections of dances. When one of them found or adapted a dance that was successful in the classroom, they would share it with the group.
Peter Amidon was leading elementary school residencies of traditional dance and music in addition to his music teaching. He would visit a school for a few days, leading dancing to his accordion playing, but realized that once the residency was over, the students couldn't do the dances because they no longer had the music.
In 1988 Peter proposed to Brass, Davis, and Mary Alice that they record a cassette tape of some of the dance tunes used for the dances - Peter could then leave the cassette tape of dance music at a school once his residency was over.
As they talked about it, the four decided to publish a companion book of the dances as well.
One of their favorite dances was “Chimes of Dunkirk,” learned from New Hampshire dance caller Dudley Laufman, so they gave their new book the title: Chimes of Dunkirk - Great Dances for Children, published it in 1991, and named their publishing company New England Dancing Masters.
Somehow the Chimes of Dunkirk collection found its way into major children's music education distributors catalogs, in particular West Music in Iowa. The NEDM four were surprised to be suddenly selling hundreds of Chimes of Dunkirk books every year.
In 1993, they published Jump Jim Joe - Great Singing Games for Children (now Rise Sally Rise) and the two collections quickly became popular with elementary school teachers across the U.S.
Since then, the NEDM have published five more book/CD dance collections and three DVDs. Over the last 30 years, they have sold more than 50,000 of their dance collections, mostly to elementary school classroom teachers. Thousands of music teachers and hundreds of thousands of children have enjoyed the dances from these NEDM collections.
All four NEDM members lead workshops for music teachers on teaching traditional dance to children.
Mary Alice and Peter Amidon have led music teacher workshops in 45 of the 50 states, often as headliners at national music teacher conferences.
This year is Andy Davis's final year of a 30-year career teaching elementary school music in greater Brattleboro elementary schools. He also directs a community choir, co-directs a church choir, is a member of Nowell Sing We Clear, and runs this Village Dance series.
Mary Cay Brass has played for hundreds of contra dances throughout the U.S. and leads dance residencies in elementary schools as well as summer choral camps for teenagers and adults. She has been leading the River Singers community chorus for 26 years.
“We had no idea that our little 1988 brainchild of a book and companion cassette tape would turn into such a significant force in American dance education,” Peter Amidon said. “We hope folks in the greater Brattleboro community, their children, and their grandchildren, will come and join us as we celebrate with dancing for all at the beautiful Evening Star Grange in Dummerston.”