SEATTLE Contra Dance Fri 5/11
Phil Katz
the Pinehurst Center (ex Blackburn VFW) in Lake City.
The band for the evening has expanded by one member,
compared to original announcements. We will be:
Vivian Williams, fiddle
Phil Katz, melodeons
Phil Williams, guitar
Lately we have been calling ourselves Small Pleasures,
and appearing just the three of us (as we did at The Eagles
w/ Jenn Youngman calling this past February), appearing at
Tacoma WA with Kate Pratt also on fiddle, in Yakima WA with Lynnel
Rowan on percussion, or at the Seattle Fifth Saturday dances
with both Lynnel and Kate.
Our tunes range from classic "Yankee" to Maritime, Quebec, and
West Canadian (including tunes from the powerful Manitoba/Alberta
Metis fiddling subculture), to northern oldtime from the
Northwest Plains and Missouri, to English and Irish traditional
tunes. There are a number of originals from Vivian, one from
Stuart Williams, and one from me.
Our special contribution is the melding and medleying all this
diverse repertoire into honest-to-goodness contradance music,
exquisitely (he says immodestly) fitted and matched to the dances.
Otoh, if the caller decides to throw in a square or two, we are
able to "turn on a dime" and come up with southern hoedowns
or Canadian squaredance jigs, as the dance indicates.
The calling this Friday will be by Roger Peacock, who will
be coming out of calling retirement. He will be calling
mainly contras, with a few other dances - a square or two,
a circle mixer, etc. He has been a gracious regular out on
the dance floor for quite some time, and imo it would be
great for the folks who have danced in the contra lines
w/ him, to come out and welcome/encourage him in his
re-debut.
Roger has been doing a 1 hr newcomers' class before the
Friday dance for several weeks, now, and this Friday will
be no exception. So invite friends to join you, whom you've
been wanting to introduce to contra dancing. or just come out
early and be an experienced-dancer "ringer" in the class,
to provide an experienced partner for some newcomer. Roger
has a wonderful reputation for giving otherwise shy folks
the courage to learn to dance, and to stick with it.
The specifics:
Dance 8-11pm; special intro class 7pm
Pinehurst Center
12327 15th Ave. NE, Seattle (Use the NE 130th exit from I5.)
Cost is $7.00
Please be welcome!
Phil Katz
<phil...@halcyon.com>
tel: 206 722 8228 (noon - midnight Pacific time is best)
3720 41st Avenue South
Seattle WA 98144 USA