Playing for Dances is like toast and butter.
Even if there were no dance scheduled, the music would cause you to jump out of your seat and dance.
It is a call and response. Being in the same room with a live band fills you with energy. In all traditions a step dance is found. Most are informal bouncing of the feet in some ways. In the south it was clogging, or flat-footing or any number of things.
So we do that.
Then there is the interactive inter gender dances. It offers opportunity to touch other people in controlled acceptable ways. There are the arm turns and assists and swings called out in old French terms, "Alamand right, "Do-si-do". And it fits right well with reels played on a fiddle.
Some how everyone has a great time.
We like helping people have a good time.
Commendation:
On 1/3/2016 5:59 PM, Karin Neils wrote:
I highly recommend Gooder 'n Grits!
I called GRFAS first Friday, and they were terrific: they've added a
bass so the beat is well-pronounced for dancers [and for me!], their
tunes were well-paced and pleasantly varied and their medleys
transitioned well, they announced their tunes which was something
appreciated by a number of folks, Bob has his eye on the caller
continuously, Julie used the dances I sent her a week ahead to choose
possible tunes when they got together to practice and she's making
notes on which tunes may not be as 'danceable', the waltzes were lovely, they used a monitor and their sound was 'whole and smooth' and at least twice they did tunes
with varied volume [there is certainly musician's lingo for that, and
I cannot tell you if they all did crescendo/decrescendo, or if they
went to fewer musicians playing; I just heard it while I called and
loved it].
If you want to hear them yourself, they have a Valentine's dance on
their website schedule <gooderngrits.us> which may be an annual
repeat of an ONS with a downtown GR church group supporting
international adoptive families - talk to them about being a
dancer..... :-)
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