Joyride at Tacoma Contra Dance
Matt Temmel
Greetings, Dancers, Please join us this coming Sunday, April 21, to dance to one of the truly great bands in the contra dance universe. Joyride, from Portland, is famous for superb tunes and ringing, rocking, gorgeous melodies and arrangements that make you want to move.
The musicians are superb. George Penk (fiddle), Erik Weberg (flute, harmonica, and bombarde!), Sue Songer (piano), and Jeff Kerssen-Griep (guitar and percussion) breathe big life into contra dancing. I really like it when Sue Songer switches to fiddle and harmonizes with George Penk—it doesn’t get any better, I would say.
Your caller is David Kreiss-Tomkins. David hails from Alaska and moved fairly recently to Seattle. I admire his good stage presence and choice dance selections.
The dance is at the Fircrest Community Center, 555 Contra Costa Ave., in Fircrest. Please drive slowly. The speed limit in Fircrest is 25 mph, and they mean it !
We start off at 3:00 with a workshop for newcomers. This is your chance to learn the basics of contra dancing in half an hour. One nice thing about our workshops is that experienced dancers always take part, and they are very welcoming to newcomers. We then dance from 3:30 to 6:00, with a brief intermission.
Admission is $10 to $25 on a “sliding scale”—that means pay what you can afford. If the crowd is large enough, we can usually cover our costs with an average of $16 per dancer.
I look forward to a fun dance. See you Sunday.
Matt