The square dance fanatics have done it again. HR 645 (The Promenade Act) to make square dancing the national folk dance was been introduced on February 5, 2003, and has been referred to the Judiciary Committee.

Looks like the USDA is promoting it, although I haven’t heard anything about it in various square dance lists.

They did it in 2000 also (here’s my comment at the time). I seem to use the same title every time it comes up. Seems like there are more important things for Congress to worry about…like Iraq, the environment, health care, the economy….and about a zillion other things.

Just came across this site: RAQ: Teaching Dance. I’ll have to check back to see if he gets his sample script done.

Great name for a folk music store: Little Shop of Horas. Plus, I like their bumpersticker, although I have a hard time seeing how it would fit on a bumper…

As usual, the contras and squares listing at the Folk Arts Center contains nothing about MWSD…we just ain’t in the picture when it comes to folk dancing, despite our claims to the contrary.

And do we meet a definition of folk dancing: Folk vs. Ethnic Dance?

It’s really too bad that folkdancing.org is (a) freakin’ ugly, (b) trying so hard to make money, so it’s charging for listings (not many groups are paying…), and (c) using lots of ads. The ads are placed at the bottom of the page, so they’re easily avoidable, unless one gets fascinated, as I did, by the cartoons on each page. I didn’t particularly notice the first one, but then the second one had a woman with a pig’s face and something about most calories come from salad dressing. I found it somewhat offensive. Then there was some dumb thing about a wizard being a god, and then a stupid sexist pickup line, and then one showing a beat-up guy and a line about being married to a woman with a fat ass. My overall impression is really stupid and fairly misogynistic, with absolutely nothing to do with folk dancing. I hope they’re getting paid to display the cartoons; if not, I gotta wonder…

This is an ambitious plan: Colorado Dance Plan. It covers all kinds of dancing. The copyright on the page is 2001, and I couldn’t find any other references on the web…wonder what’s happening with it.

Bopping around the web, as usual, and found that National Dance Week 2003 is April 25-May 4. Then I found this very attractive website for Bay Area National Dance Week Events. As a participatory (as opposed to performance) dance fan, I checked through the listings to see if any participatory dance groups were, so to speak, participating.

On Sunday, the San Francisco Folk Dance Council is presenting a

One hour International Folk Dance concert followed by a 3 hour program of social and recreational dances from around the world. Line dances, couples, progresive and sets. All ages are welcome.

This sounds like a fun event by the Northern California Lindy Society:

The Northern California Lindy Society and local swing dance instructors invite you to experience the fun and variety of swing dancing at this 3-hour event that includes classes, demos, performances, lectures and video presentations.

For cloggers, the Barbary Coast Cloggers, a performance group, is offering this event:

The first hour will be an open rehearsal for a commissioned work to be presented in June. A question and answer period will follow the rehearsal for those interested in learning more about the company and its work. An introductory class in clogging will be offered from 3-4 PM.

Here’s a milonga (tango dance):

Argentine tango party. There is a beginner’s Argentine tango class from 7-8 pm before the dance party, and it would benefit first-timers greatly to attend the class first.

Except for the milonga, all the events involve performance as well as dancing. And I didn’t see any contra or square dancing. But it sure was interesting, seeing all the different kinds of dancing available. Contact Improv, anyone?

My home club, the Wilde Bunch, has a new board, with some very active new officers. Danny Lee, our Outreach Coordinator, has written a report for the Wilde Bunch, some of which is applicable to other groups. At least it gives us a start…

I had a great time at ACDC 2003, despite almost not making it because of a 24-hour flu-thang on Thursday. At least, I thought it was some flu-thing, until I googled 24-hour flu and found several references saying there’s no such thing: it’s inevitably food poisoning. Whatever…I was throwing up at 4:30 am on Friday, so I didn’t try to catch my 7:55 am flight to BWI, and then at 7:30 am, I felt fine. So I rearranged flights (try that on any airline other than Southwest, and got in by 10 pm Friday night. I missed Friday’s dancing, but danced the rest of the weekend, including the totally-wonderful Glen Echo contra dance, with Woody Lane calling and New Balance playing.

Woody called a couple of squares, and we had exactly eight dancers (4 C4, 1 C3B, 2 C3A, 1 C1; out of those, 3 MWSD callers and 1 contra caller) from ACDC, so we managed to square up as a group for one of the squares. (I later heard a comment about the “club” dancers squaring up together…I think it was an observational as opposed to negative comment.) The first square featured square thru, and basically used the “chicken-plucker” pattern (all the MWSD callers recognized it, even though he started “across the street” with a square thru 2). The break was a standard allemande-left-to-an-allemande-thar-shoot-the-star-to-another-thar, shoot-the-star-to-your-partner routine. The second square had a little mini-rip’n’snort, wring-the-dishrag thing (I don’t think I’d try it with the aging MWSD crowd), and the break had ladies chaining in the middle while the gents did pull-bys around the outside. It probably has a name, but I don’t know it.

He also called a Sicilian Circle dance that involved two square thru 3’s (I liked it that he built on the square thru that he had already used in the square).

By the end of the evening, I’d gotten more exercise in the 3 hours of contra than I had in 2 days of MWSD (except for the last C1 square, where 16 people danced the whole tip “as couples”–a sweaty, aerobic, and fun activity for sure).

I’m heading off to ACDC 2003 this weekend, to dance to Anne Uebelacker, Mike Jacobs (Mike doesn’t have a website, or even a listing in Vic’s database, but if you google him, you’ll find lots of info), John Marshall, and Linda Kendall (you’ll need to google her also). Should be lots of fun!