The 32nd Champaign-Urbana January Jam dance weekend is coming up on
the weekend of January 4-6, 2019. This will be a wonderful weekend of
music and dance with the bands The Mean Lids and Uncle Farmer. The
callers will be Chet Grey from Louisville, Gail Hintze from Chillicothe,
IL and Scott Meyer and Jonathan Sivier from Champaign. There will be
contra dances on Friday and Saturday evening, workshops during the day
on Saturday and more dancing on Sunday. You can find more info at
"http://www.urbana-contra.org/jan_jam.html" The deadline for early bird
registration is December 19, so don't delay, sign up right away.
This will be a fun event and I hope to see everyone there.
Jonathan
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Jonathan Sivier
Caller of Contra, Square, English and Early American Dances
jsivier AT illinois DOT edu
Dance Page: http://www.sivier.me/dance_leader.html
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Q: How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
A: It depends on what dance you call!
A somewhat older than average lady friend of mine has recently been expelled from the local WSD club - in the nastiest way possible. She had been a loyal member for over 30 years. She was well known and liked. The group was active and supported by a number of local and guest callers. She also participated in the 'duties' of making tea and serving refreshments. She was also a keen ECD dancer and also a step and clog dancer.
But I couldn't go with her to Saturday night dances because I hadn't been certificated or to my mind certified. When we went to Boston in the US some years' back we visited a local WSD club - but I wasn't allowed to join in. I sat out for the whole evening. Nice welcome - not.
Whilst in Boston she was taken by locals to a square dance shop and kitted out with all of the female attire - at some cost I might add.
So what went wrong near Reading?
Some of the younger members (huh - in their 50s) apparently wanted to do Plus (or something). They organised weekend workshops. Unfortunately my friend missed two of these. Then the Plus dancers decided that's what they wanted to do on club nights. This meant that only those who had been to all of the workshops could dance. That left my friend out - AND SHE WAS ASKED TO LEAVE.
I thought that this cr*p attitude had died out years ago, but it is evidently still flourishing in rural Berkshire and very likely elsewhere.
CJB
If you know of contra dance callers who are also practitioners or trainers of Nonviolent Communication (NVC), would you get in touch with me, please? Thanks.
NVC is an approach and practice devised by the late Marshall Rosenberg. You can find a description at www.cnvc.org/about/what-is-nvc.html.
Bruce Hamilton
BruceHamilto(a)gmail.com
