Reporting in from Minnesota: Contra, ECD, and IFD at Tapestry Folkdance Center in Minneapolis started up at various points during the summer. Family dance has not started dancing in person; when our committee last met in July, we decided to wait and see until at least October, a decision that is looking smarter every week, if I may say so.

Dancing is indoors in our building. Tapestry was in the fortunate position of having installed a brand-new HVAC system in 2019, and was able to adjust/modify it to have an exceptional air-exchange rate (10 full air replacements an hour at full blast).

Personally, I have elected not to participate in dancing or to call dances these first couple months, but I am running sound on occasion, masked and pretty much staying at the sound booth except for setup and teardown. Tapestry announced last week that it was going to require proof of vaccination for everyone entering the building starting this weekend. I do not know if Tapestry is trying to track whether anyone who has danced there contracts COVID.

The Monday Night Square Dance series (not affiliated with Tapestry and in a different space) had announced they were going to restart dancing the first Monday in October. My suspicion is that they're in wait-and-see mode.

David Kirchner