TOPSHAM — The 22nd annual DownEast Country Dance Festival takes place today and Saturday at the Orion Performing Arts Center at Mt. Ararat Middle School.

A release from organizers describes the festival as follows:

Everything from fiddles and foot percussion to banjos and mandolins will rattle the rafters at … the Orion Performing Arts Center.

While some of the music is just for listening, the vast majority serves to fuel the feet of the hundreds of people who flock there each year for dancing offered non-stop from 7:30 p.m. to midnight (today), and 10 a.m. to midnight on Saturday.

“The mainstay of the festival is traditional New England country dancing — or ‘contra dancing,’ as it is more popularly known,” event coordinator Lynn Plumb said in the release, “but attendees can choose from a whole spectrum of other dance styles as well as music activities.”

Saturday is workshop day, offering an introduction to contra basics as well as classes in square dancing (both traditional New England and modern Western styles), belly dancing, Irish set dancing, English and Scottish country dancing, Quebecois step dancing, and an array of other international dance styles from France, Israel, Scandinavia and beyond.

The art of ballroom also will be covered with sessions in waltz, swing, foxtrot, tango and samba.

Those looking to expand their musical horizons can learn about clawhammer banjo or klezmer fiddle techniques, mandolin tricks or how to play piano back-up for contra dancing.

Also offered will be singalongs, workshops in Shape Note and round singing, as well as “vocal skinny-dipping” with the a cappella improv group ImproVox.

An afternoon variety show will feature performances of Scottish highland dancing, Middle Eastern belly dance, Argentine tango and traditional English Morris dancing.

A number of mini-concerts also are on the roster, ranging from Balkan soul to honky tonk and Western swing, and there will be a selection of special activities for children and families, including arts and crafts, creative folk dance for parent and child, and a workshop in silly pranks and parlor tricks.

Providing tonight’s music will be the Franklin County Fiddlers and the trio Nor’easter. On Saturday evening, dancers will have a choice between contra dancing to the bands Playgroup and Notorious, doing Cajun two-steps and waltzes to Jimmyjo & the Jumbol’ayuhs, or carousing at an international folk dance party featuring the Cambridge Folk Orchestra or an Argentine tango party with Randy Avis and Friends.

Admission prices for the DownEast Country Dance Festival range from $12 to $35, depending the number of sessions one attends, with discounted tickets for full-time students age 11 to 21, and free admission to any child age 10 or younger, if accompanied by adult.

More information is available by calling 563-8953 or consulting the website, www.deffa.org.

ticket@timesrecord.com

Copy the Story Link

Comments are not available on this story.