Links to sites of possible interest
Country dance sites
What is Contra Dance? you ask?
Click on this link and find out! Authored by Santa Barbara contra-enthusiast,
Gary Shapiro.
Country Dance and Song Society
is an umbrella organization promoting North American and English folk
dance. They sponsor the famous Pinewoods Dance Camps, and also run
a webstore sporting all sorts of dancerphernalia including books
and recordings.
SeattleDance is a website maintained by Matt Fisher
containing valuable info about a variety of folk dance events around the
Puget Sound area.
Northwest Folklife Festival
…an amazing event which happens every year at Seattle Center over
Memorial Day weekend. There are literally thousands of musical groups of all shapes,
sizes and styles, and participatory dancing all weekend, great food,
and much revelry. Not to be missed! The only drawback is that
it occurs during Bellingham’s Ski-to-Sea weekend.
Vancouver Country Dance,
our neighbor to the north has their own site.
The Dance Database
is an incredibly comprehensive searchable data base of nationwide dances, bands, callers, and the occasional
set of dance figures maintained by Ithaca NY caller, Ted Crane. Use this site to
plan your next cross-country dance tour.
Contra Dance Links for the United States, Canada, and the World
is maintained by Charlie Seelig. As the title implies, it’s a huge list of
contra dance links worldwide. Check out this site before any “
dance gypsy” vacation you may have planned.
Contra Corners is a site produced by Dwayne Johnson.
Another dance directory and includes a clickable map of the US which will
point you to other dance sites by locality.
Community Dance Project
is the brainchild of Vancouvarian, Marian Rose. Marian does a heck
of a job bringing country dance to schools throughout British Columbia
(and the rest of North America as well!) You can also preview her two
book/CD sets containing some great dance music and really fun dance
instructions suitable for kids of all ages!- The Contra Dance Designer is Greg Hopkins’ way-cool computer-simulation game where you can
design your own contra dance. It won’t run on every browser. - Internet resources for contra dance callers is long list of links from William Watson. Also see this page showing what kinds of notations are on the index cards callers have in their collection of dances.
Related traditional music sites
Thirty Below …brrr!!!…is a web
resource and webstore devoted to the traditional music of Quebec. Maintained by
Guy Bouchard and Laura Sadowsky.- The Old-Time Music Homepage is a remarkably thorough resource relating to the fiddle music of the Southern Appalachians. Maintained by David Lynch.
Roots of American Fiddle Music
is another page dedicated to old-time fiddle. Lots of bios and sound samples
from many of the fine old-time string bands of the 20′s and 30′s.- So you’ve heard ABOUT Old Time Music, and maybe read bit about it, but still
want to hear how it was done 70 years ago? Check out
Old Time Music from 78s. This is a THOROUGHLY AMAZING site which contains
Real Audio samples from a whopping 683 of the most important recordings of Old
Time Music from the 20s and 30s. A MUST-VISIT site!!!!!
Floyd’s Record Shop
in Ville Platte Louisiana is THE definitive record store for Cajun, Zydeco
and Swamp Pop music.
Festival of American Fiddle Tunes
in Port Townsend, WA. 2010 will mark its 34th year. Held during the week
surrounding July 4th, the festival features intensive workshops in a wide
variety of North American traditional music styles, evening concerts
(open to the general public on the weekend), lots of dancing, jamming,
and camp-raderie. The ultimate sleep-deprivation experiment!
Email-based discussion groups
Fiddle Players’ Discussion List (FIDDLE-L) is an email discussion list
relating to many aspects of fiddle music. Everything from old-time
to Celtic to Swing is fair game for discussion as long as it can be played
with a bow on 4 strings. To sign up, visit the above link and follow
the directions (this site also contains their archives) or send an email to:
FIDDLE-L-Request@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU with the words
“subscribe Fiddle-L” in the subject and body of the email.
Warning: traffic on this list can get pretty heavy at times.
Worth every download, though.
SeattleContra
is an email discussion list relating to contra dance happenings around
the Puget Sound area. To sign up, check out their website and archives by
clicking the link. The list can be viewed either through their website
or by signing up for email delivery.
Contra Sound Forum
is an email discussion group relating to the arcane black art of providing
sound reinforcement at contra dances…a task often akin to trench warfare!
Discussions range from beginner’s questions and answers to very technical
matters. Great reading, though!
USENET newsgroups
The following are some USENET newsgroups. They require a news server and
client-side news reader to access. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet_newsgroup if you want more info about newsgroups.)
- rec.folk-dancing is a newsgroup dealing with many types of folk dancing, but usually the discussion centers around the more esoteric aspects of contra dancing. THE resource where one can find out how many claps are appropriate after the “Petronella Turn”
(short answer: zero!) - rec.music.country.old-time is a newsgroup relating to the often fiddle-centric music from the Southern Appalachians (as well as other places) in a genre loosely termed “old-time music.” Hard to define, but you’d recognize it you heard it! Remember: Old-time music is better than it sounds!
- alt.culture.cajun. In the absence of a Cajun music-specific newsgroup, this is about as close as you can get. Not just music, but other aspects of Cajun culture are also discussed.
- rec.music.makers.squeezebox.Technical aspects of all types of accordions and styles of playing are discussed from the player’s perspective.