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The Rose and the Thorn: Contrasts in Music and Dance of Earlier Times

April 5, 2013 | Posted by Caroline Batson

photo by Paul Lipke

Early Music Week
Pinewoods Camp, Plymouth, MA
June 27-July 4, 2013

Watch a video of the week.
Read or print the flyer.

Free or measured? Monophonic or polyphonic? Improvised or written? Medieval or Renaissance? Treble or Contrabass? Dance music or concert music? High pitch or low pitch?

Explore these delicious questions and many more in a friendly, welcoming, magical place, with world-class faculty, friendly participants, and where the sounds of music and dance rise to the tops of the trees. This is CDSS’s Early Music Week, June 27-July 4, 2013, held at Pinewoods Camp, Plymouth, MA.

The week’s program offers musical challenges and opportunities for beginners and experienced players and singers. In morning technique and consort classes and afternoon special topic ensembles, we will play and sing music from the vibrant Middle Ages to the virtuosic Baroque.

Photo by Corey Green

If you’ve never played a musical instrument (but wish you could), or if you studied music years ago (and fear you’ve forgotten everything), there are classes to get you started or to help brush off the rust. Introductory classes are offered this year in recorder, viol and harp. Advanced and intermediate players and singers have a wide array of classes from which to choose: early winds (recorders, reeds and brass), strings (viols and violin), harpsichord and voice.

Dancers, too, will find a wealth of activity, including high-level technique classes, challenging ensembles and historical dance.

Relaxing is always part of the week, too, with two ponds for swimming and canoeing, a Camphouse deck for summer reading, afternoon tea, staff concerts and lots of wonderful dancing-for-all.

Also offered during the Early Music Week are two Special Courses: Viol Intensive Course, with Sarah Mead and Lisa Terry, and English Dance Musicians Course, with Peter Barnes.  (Separate registration is required for each Special Course.)

photo by Cheri Glaser

The week is run by the Country Dance and Song Society, a traditional dance and music organization, founded in 1915, whose work is grounded in English and Anglo-American social dance and dance music. Early Music Week has been part of our summer programs since 1958. Please join us for glorious music and dance under the trees!

Early Music Week
Pinewoods Camp, Plymouth, MA
June 27-July 4, 2013

Camp staff
(click on “week” in the horizontal gray bar to sort by week name)
Class descriptions (printable)
Class schedule
Class schedule (printable)
To register for the week
Fees
Scholarships
(In addition to the CDSS scholarships, summer scholarships are offered by Early Music America, deadline: April 15, and the Viola da Gamba Society of America, deadline: April 15.)

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Arts Advocacy Alert

April 4, 2013 | Posted by Caroline Batson

Traditional dance, music and song—whether performed, taught or done for fun are living traditions and living arts, and an important part of arts education. Lend your voice in support of National Arts Advocacy Day next week. It’s Tuesday, April 9th. Americans for the Arts (Arts USA) will welcome more than 500 arts advocates to Capitol Hill. Here’s how YOU can help even if you’re not there:

  • To support state arts advocacy delegation members who are going to DC, write to your Members of Congress by this Friday, April 5th at noon. Arts USA will tally the letters so your state arts advocacy captain can walk in each Congressional office and say, “Today is Arts Advocacy Day and I want to add my voice to the [X number of] other constituents who have emailed you about the importance of the arts and arts education in our state.”
  • Take two minutes to send a pre-written, customizable Arts Advocacy Day letter to your members of Congress.
  • Attend a live Arts Advocacy Day event from home! Cellist and arts educator Yo-Yo Ma will deliver the Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy and perform at the JFK Center for the Performing Arts. Google will web stream the event live for millions to enjoy. To watch, visit the Americans for the Arts’ YouTube channel on Monday, April 8 at 6:30 PM EDT.
  • Ask Yo-Yo Ma an arts education question! On Saturday, the cellist will take a break from his Arts Advocacy Day visits with Congress to participate in Arts USA’s Google Hangout (aka video chat). Tweet them your questions in advance using the #AskYoYo hashtag. To watch the Google Hangout, visit the Americans for the Arts’ YouTube channel on Tuesday, April 9 at 10:30 AM EDT.

Support the arts and arts education—be part of the 2013 National Arts Advocacy Day.

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“You are welcome in this place!” Harmony of Song & Dance

March 28, 2013 | Posted by Caroline Batson

by Nils Fredland, Harmony program director

Harmony of Song & Dance
Pinewoods Camp, Plymouth, MA
July 27 – August 3, 2013

Watch a video from last year, shot by Camilla Streeter.

Nils Fredland leading a song, Harmony Week 2012; photo by Camilla Streeter

The Country Dance and Song Society celebrates and promotes participatory dance, music and song. There is no place where that celebration is as tangible as it is at Harmony of Song and Dance. The magic of Pinewoods Camp—nestled between two ponds and amid the pines—serves as the backdrop for the remarkable community that forms through a week of singing, dancing and eating together. There is a space for YOU: no matter whether you have years of experience as a dancer, singer or both; or you are new to these activities and looking to build skills and find confidence; or you want a week that will allow you to take risks, find support and be inspired; or you want simply to relax in a beautiful place, surrounded by music and dance. In the words, sung by former HSD staff member Kathy Bullock; “You are welcome in this place.” The experience will be richer for all participants if you grace us with your presence.

The week’s theme is community music making, based on the foundation of the riches of traditional song and dance, and the understanding that new songs and dances grow out of the old. The staff has deep roots in the song and dance traditions they are teaching, and their teaching reflects how these dynamic traditions are continuously evolving. They were chosen for their expertise, but also for their ability to teach and nurture, as well as for their willingness to engage fully as members of the camp community.

Be part of the community at the Harmony of Song and Dance: engage, be inspired, feel supported; sing, dance and make music!

Picture your first day at camp

You wake up in your cabin, walk along a wooded path between tall slender pines to another cabin for your shower and ablutions. You join your greater family of singers and dancers at the dining hall for a hearty breakfast and a cup of coffee or tea. Then you climb over the wooded hill past a village of tiny cabins and down the other side to the C# Minor pavilion for vocal warm-ups and—if needed—help in finding your vocal part. By 9:00 AM nearly one hundred and fifty singers are sitting on benches, and the daily 75-minute All Camp Chorale has begun.

David Jones singing, Harmony Week 2012; photo by Suzanne Mrozak

The repertoire may include American country harmony, South African choral music, shape note and gospel, contemporary a cappella, and new arrangements of traditional songs. Be engaged by the diversity of repertoire, be inspired by the expertise of the staff song leaders, and be supported by your fellow participants and other staff members. Your abilities and comfort as a singer will be met with the support you need to participate fully in the experience.

After a short break, the entire camp splits into four groups for an hour of social dancing: English country; contras and squares, open to everyone, and particularly friendly for new dancers; and an addition to the morning dance classes this year—the traditional English ritual dance known as morris dancing.

Then swimming in the lake, jamming on the porch, visiting the bookstore, and socializing with friends old and new. And we haven’t even had lunch yet.

“Singing on the Porch,” pub-type chorus songs, wraps up lunch, followed by a potpourri of singing, instrumental music making and dancing—care of the voice, American country harmony, shape note and gospel, harmony by ear, a cappella band, two vocal arranging classes, a choral accompaniment class for pianists, rapper sword dancing, a dance band class, old time slow jam, tune session, community chorale, vocal swing and honky-tonk, and a late-afternoon open mic dance for musicians, callers, and dancers.

Long Pond at night; photo by Stewart Dean

After dinner there is a concert—where staff perform solo or in small group collaboration that is always amazing, sometimes amusing—followed by the evening dance—contra, square, and English, ending the day as we began it—as whole camp community, and the dance ends with a closing song, bringing the day full circle.

Harmony of Song & Dance
Pinewoods Camp, Plymouth, MA
July 27 – August 3, 2013

Camp staff (click on “week” in the horizontal gray bar to sort by week name)

Class schedule

To register

Fees

Scholarships

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Fundraising for your group or project

March 27, 2013 | Posted by Caroline Batson

by Rima Dael, CDSS Executive Director

We have been getting many requests of how best to fundraise for a project or for a group. I’ve sent the resources below to a few members but I wanted to post this here for everyone to see.

First, let’s set the context in which you are fundraising. Eighty percent of all philanthropic dollars comes from individuals, 5% from corporations and 15% from foundations. But the Arts only receive 4% of all the philanthropic dollars donated. More information on giving statistics is available through Charity Navigator.

Here is a great tool from the Chronicle of Philanthropy to give you an overview of how individuals give in the US based on location: http://philanthropy.com/section/How-America-Gives/621/.

For most groups and specific projects I recommend crowd source fundraising* and small project grants as a good way to build a solid donor base for a project. Individual donors are the best way to build sustainability for your group.

Here is a resource on how to cultivate donors: http://www.fracturedatlas.org/site/blog/2012/09/06/tips-and-tools-cultivating-donors/.

Here is a link with some grants and funding leads: http://foundationcenter.org/focus/arts/.

And another one: http://grantspace.org/Tools/Knowledge-Base/Individual-Grantseekers/Artists/Funding-for-individual-artists.

Here is a link and resource for crowd source fundraising: http://www.azarts.gov/news-resources/news/trends-in-fundraising-crowdfunding-101/.

And another one: http://www.fracturedatlas.org/site/blog/2012/09/26/tips-and-tools-crowdfunding/.

Once that is started and underway, going the more traditional route to build an annual fundraising plan which would include major donors, I suggest this article about individual donors: http://www.fracturedatlas.org/site/blog/2013/02/07/tips-and-tools-individual-appeals/.

I heartedly recommend signing up for a free account through Fractured Atlas, which is a partner to CDSS, for their free fundraising webinar courses; here is a link to those courses: http://courses.fracturedatlas.org/courses.

Happy Fundraising!

Rima :)

* Crowd source funding and fundraising is networking with people via the internet and word of mouth, to pool money together to support a project or organization. In other words, it’s when you invite your supporters to reach out to their contacts and spread the message, raising money on your behalf.

 

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New Banner and “Callers-Moot”

March 1, 2013 | Posted by Mary Wesley

The new CDSS banner will travel to events across the country!

Happy Friday CDSS Friends!

I have two things to share:

  1. Look at our beautiful new banner, recently unveiled at the Dance Flurry in Saratoga Springs, NY !  Thanks to all those Flurry-goers who came to chat about the CDSS Centennial.  Your great ideas are a huge help!
  2. This weekend I’m headed back to New York to participate in the the annual CNY Callers Gathering happening all day tomorrow in Fayetteville.  About twenty callers are converging for what some are referring to as a “callers-moot” (moot = J.R.R. Tolkein’s term for a gathering or council of like-minded beings).  There is no one workshop leader for the event; callers of all experience levels will collaborate to exchange ideas and advice and of course to dance together!  This year’s event is centered around David Smuckler and David Millstone’s book “Cracking Chestnuts.”  Smuckler is the main motivator behind the Callers Gathering.  Millstone will be filming many of the dance sequences as accompanying material for the book.  The day will culminate in a “Chestnuts Ball” open to the public where these traditional New England dances will be enjoyed by all!

Look for a full report next week.  I have to go study my chestnuts now!

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What Does the Exec Do?

February 25, 2013 | Posted by Caroline Batson

by Jenny Beer, CDSS Vice President

Exec in Sacramento (l-r): Lynn Ackerson, David Millstone, Pat Petersen, David Chandler, Stephen Stiebel, Rima Dael (CDSS director), Jill Allen, Jenny Beer and visiting past president Bruce Hamilton

The CDSS Governing Board (23 people) meets every spring at the CDSS office for two-and-a-half days, and by teleconference or forum as needed, to make decisions that need substantive discussion. This leaves the more routine oversight, planning, and decisions to the nine member Exec, which meets six times a year, twice in person and the rest by teleconference.

Around the time the Exec was meeting in Sacramento recently, I got several queries from dancing friends in California asking, “What does the Exec actually do in their meetings?” Below is what happened at the February 1, 2013 meeting.

Reports are distributed and reviewed before the meeting starts, leaving us time to focus on larger issues. Topics during our Sacramento meeting included:

  • discussing preparations and financing for CDSS’s centennial in 2015
  • approving CDSS’s 2014 budget (a conservative one)
  • discussing CDSS’s strategic direction in becoming a bi-national arts organization, especially the balance between offering member services and promoting larger projects and presence, and then how these might change the role of the Board
  • administrative concerns about cash flow
  • consulting with the Awards committee
  • reviewing Nominating Committee procedures
  • checking on the progress of our various task groups
  • applauding the first of CDSS’s traveling banners, part of the “CDSS in a Box” road kits the office is putting together

Decisions are always better thanks to high quality chocolates that wind their way around the table during our meetings. Thanks to Patty and Paul Larsen for giving us full run of their house and providing lunch as well. We finished our agenda in time to head for the anniversary dinner and dance. What better way to conclude a meeting?

Articles about the Sacramento meeting and the one in Huntsville, AL in November will be in the spring issue of the CDSS News.

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Gifts In Memory Of/In Honor Of

February 22, 2013 | Posted by Robin Hayden

I’ve just finished the absorbing and humbling exercise of editing the list of 2012 Donors to CDSS.  You can see the full list here.   Its impressive amplitude is a testament both to the generosity of our supporters and to the depth of feeling that traditional dance, music, and song evoke in those who participate and in the communities they form.

I was particularly struck this year by the number of gifts made in memory of or in honor of someone special.  Interspersed in the full list, you’ll see the names of leading lights of traditional dance, music, and song – some long gone, some recently departed.  A gift in their memory speaks of a wish to honor their contributions, and in many cases reflects a cherished personal history between the donor and the honoree.

Others have shined a light on leaders and communities who matter to them now, today, with a gift in their honor.  And many of you made gifts to honor friends and family members who left us this past year.  Making such a gift is a way of doing something positive and forward-looking in a time of grief and loss.  It is also a public gesture of love to bereft families and friends that says, “I remember, and I will long remember.”

 

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Flurry goers – let’s chat!

February 15, 2013 | Posted by Mary Wesley

I mean it! (photo by Daniel Friedman)

Happy Friday everyone!  Are you headed to The Dance Flurry in Saratoga Springs, NY this weekend?  If you are, look out for our brand NEW CDSS banner!  You can also look out for me.  I will be around all weekend and I’d love to chat with you about CDSS.  I’m happy to talk any time if you have questions or ideas to share.  I would especially love to see you at 3:00 on Sunday afternoon when I’ll be leading an informal discussion session titled “100 Years of CDSS.”  We’ll talk a little bit about the history of CDSS and a lot about our future.  As you know our centennial is coming up in 2015.  One of the most important aspects of the celebration will be community participation: that’s you!  Please come chat with me about your ideas for celebrating and enriching our next 100 years.

CDSS Discussion @ The Flurry

Sunday, Feb. 17

Hilton in the Whitney Room

3:00 – 4:00 pm.

See you soon!
Mary

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Rima’s Travels–Meeting and Dancing in Sacramento

February 8, 2013 | Posted by Caroline Batson

by Rima Dael, Executive Director

Rima and the Exec in Sacramento (l-r): Lynn Ackerson (CA), David Millstone (NH), Pat Petersen (NC), Stephen Stiebel (NC), David Chandler (NJ), Rima, Jill Allen (KS), Jenny Beer (PA), Linda Lieberman (IA)

So here’s a funny story—I got a cold coming back from a dance weekend! Sound familiar?! (Smile.)

Twice a year, the Executive Committee from the CDSS Board travels to different communities around the US and Canada to meet new people, get to know their communities, have our meeting, and, of course, dance! We do this to be sure we hear from our members and communities about the good things they are doing, what works well for them locally, and what issues they are currently facing.

We had the pleasure of dancing in Sacramento, CA last Friday-Sunday, February 1-3, hosted by the Sacramento Country Dance Society who have been CDSS members since the early 1990s. We were welcomed to the weekend with a Friday night contra, attended by a large, wonderful and energetic group of new and experienced dancers, to the calling of CDSS president David Millstone, with music from Crab Apples, from Monterey, CA. Since this was not their usual contra dance night, active members used Facebook and MeetUp to connect with others in the community to get the word out. And yes, good old-fashioned word-of-mouth helped too.

Friday contra dance; photo by Linda Lieberman

Mike Silver at the 10th anniversary English dance on Saturday; photo by Linda Lieberman

While the CDSS Exec met during the day on Saturday, the English country dancers of Sacramento CDS kicked off their 10th Anniversary Celebration with afternoon workshops by Brooke Friendly. The evening party and dance was led by Sharon Green, Mistress of Ceremonies, with music by Quite Carried Away. Callers of the evening included Lise Dyckman, Alan Winston, Brooke Friendly, Mary Luckhardt, Sharon Green, Linda Lieberman, Pat Petersen, Bob Farley and Bruce Hamilton.

Sunday morning members of the Bay Area CDS and Sacramento CDS had brunch with the CDSS Exec, and we listened to them share the joys and challenges their communities face.

Despite my cold, I retain a warm and welcoming memory of Sacramento, our marvelous hosts, and the vibrant dance community.

Sacramento Country Dance Society (SactoCDS) sponsors contra and English country dances; see their webpage for details.

 

 

 

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Ralph Page Dance Legacy Weekend, part 4—The Future is NOW!

February 1, 2013 | Posted by Caroline Batson

by Mary Wesley, CDSS Education Associate

 

Once and a half around! (Photo by Sharon Schenkel)

This year was the third time I have attended the Ralph Page Dance Legacy Weekend—for me it seems to be turning into something of a pilgrimage. It is difficult to put into words what it feels like to be at this unique event and why I plan to keep coming back. I was two years old when Ralph Page, the “dean of contra dance callers,” died in 1985. I never met him or danced to his calls. So what does this weekend that bears his name hold for me?

The tagline for Ralph Page is “The Essence of the Past Driving the Spirit of the Future.” Parts of the weekend are about glancing backward in time: you will dance more “chestnuts” than you might be used to, see a greater variety of dance forms than appear at most regular contra dances these days and every year there is a “Retrospective Session” explicitly dedicated to honoring past callers, musicians and traditions. But this weekend is not about preservation. Nothing here is under glass. It’s not about how we used to dance, it’s about dancing together now!

Mixed in with chestnuts, triplets, triple-minors and squares are plenty of zesty, modern dances. This year Nils Fredland ran a session called “New New England Dances” featuring all recent dance compositions from New England choreographers set to tunes by Old New England. At this weekend we remember that for every new dance and tune that comes along, there’s one that came before it. People connect the dots between past and present by telling stories, watching old video footage, sharing memories, and folks old and young talking about “how it was” and “how it is now” and what they think of it all. As a result, the dance floor at Ralph Page is full of people who know themselves to be part of a living tradition. I think it makes for some of the richest dancing you’ll find anywhere.

Perhaps one of the nicest illustrations of the “past driving the spirit of the future” this year was the spontaneous Money Musk “moment” that broke out in the cafeteria just after Sunday lunch. Like most dance weekends, jamming abounds at Ralph Page. That afternoon as people were finishing their sandwiches and resting their feet a familiar tune floated through the air. The musicians had hardly played it one time through when a group of five or six excited people (mostly callers) came running over, pushed tables and chairs aside, took hands-six and started dancing Money Musk. More and more furniture was shoved out of the way as the set extended far past the salad bar. We must have danced for at least twenty minutes—maybe longer. It was extraordinary.

And forward six! (Photo by Mary Wesley)

My favorite part of the experience was chatting with the (indefatigable!) musicians afterward. Many of them were under twenty years old and said they were quite surprised to see so many people stand up to dance Money Musk. In recent years there has been quite a push to bring back this centuries-old dance, “this most famous of all New England dances” as Ralph Page called it, and in some ways it’s becoming a bit of a cult classic. In the “old days” the dance would most often be done without a walkthrough and even without calls, probably in someone’s small, farmhouse kitchen. Substitute the UNH cafeteria and call it a “flash mob” and it’s almost the same thing—certainly the same tune. Now those young fiddlers and all those who danced or watched the dance have a memory of something that they created and were part of. They carry on the legacy, from the past into the future.

Everyone who is part of any community dance, contra or square dance event is carrying on the legacy and I think there are so many ways to do it and they are all important. I keep coming back to the Ralph Page Dance Legacy Weekend because it feels so good to gather with so many people who care about this mission. It is a place where I always feel like I have something to learn as well as something to contribute. Twenty years from now I have no doubt I will be dancing at a retrospective session that will look back at something that is happening right now—something that is being created from pieces of the past and present. I’ll be there. Will you?

Some CDSS staff and  board members were at the weekend; for earlier posts, see Part 1, by David Smukler; Part 2, by Pat MacPherson; Part 3, by Rima Dael. Thanks to all for sharing their experiences at this marvelous event.

 

 

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