The Amidons - Storytelling, Traditional Dancing and Music

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Workshop Notes

• Central Florida AOSA (Orlando): Teaching Traditional Dance and Singing Games to Children
• North Texas Kodaly Educators (OAKE)
• NYSSMA 2007, Rochester, NY
• Teaching Traditional Dance to Children: National AOSA Conference 2007 San Jose
• Storytelling, Literature, Picture Books and Music: National AOSA Conference 2007 San Jose
• Thursday Evening Dance: National AOSA Conference 2007 San Jose
• Vermont Children’s Librarians: Literature, Storytelling and Music in the Library
• Kodaly New Jersey: Teaching Traditional Dance and Singing Games to Children
• Maine Arts Education Conference: Teaching Traditional Dance and Singing Games to Children
• Maine Arts Education Conference: Literature, Storytelling and Music in the Classroom
• Creating a Dynamic Learning Community with Dance, Song, and Storytelling
• Atlanta Music Teacher Workshop Notes

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This page was updated
December 3, 2007

Workshops

Workshop Notes

NYSSMA Conference, Rochester, NY
November 30, Friday night 7:15 - 8:30  pm
We Are All Dancers

Dear NYSSMA Conferees,

We had a blast with you at the Friday night dance.  Thanks
in particular to all the college students who raised the level
of energy a few notches. 

Your homework is to go dancing.  Here are some online
resources for finding dances in your area.

Rochester, NY
http://rochestercontra.com/
contra dance every Thursday night: (Just go for an hour if you want!)
Unless otherwise noted all conras are held at Covenant United  Methodist Church, 1124 Culver Road (corner of Parsells) from 8 to 11 PM.

English country dances (1st and 3rd Sundays, 7:30 - 10 pm are at the Friends Meeting  House, 84 Scio St.

For other New York State areas I suggest you start out by Googling, for example,    Albany contra dance

You can also get all information you need for your local dances from the following two sites:

http://www.thedancegypsy.com/
This is my favorite site.  It includes contra dances, English country dances and more, all across the United States.

http://www.contradancelinks.com/
This is a resource of contra dance websites

Here are some notes on the dances we did:

Blaydon Races in the handout
in NEDM’s Chimes of Dunkirk collection
Mary Alice played for this.  We like doing this dance with jigs, often choosing  ‘Old Favorite’ from NEDM’s ‘Other Side of the Tracks’ CD.

We did this is a mixer, but you can also do it with younger children without changing partners. We often call this at weddings.

Grumpy March in the handout
in NEDM’s Sashay the Donut collection
This could also have been in the ‘Fostering Middle School Dance Mania’ workshop; it is a great dance for upper elementary, middle school and high school. Remember to specifically teach the students not to clap too hard.

Sicilian Vowel Dance in the handout
In NEDM’s Sashay the Donut collection
We used ‘Golden Keyboard’ (actually, the piano only comes in at the end of the cut) from NEDM’s ‘Any Jig or Reel’ for this. Do this with 5th or 6th graders who have a fair amount of dance experience, and who have already learned the grand right and left (‘Lucky Seven’ from our Chimes of Dunkirk collection is a good teaching dance for the Grand Right and Left figure). It can work at a community dance if you have all the younger
children dance with an adult or older experienced child partner. The main teaching point is, once folks are in the formation of couple facing couple (Sicilian circle formation), having everyone point to the left.  Those pointing to the inside of the circle say “I am an insider.” Those pointing to the outside say, “I am an outsider.” That is the direction they start going
when they do the big, no hands, stay-with-partner grand right and left.

Galopede in the handout
In NEDM’s Chimes of Dunkirk collection
We always do this to the specific tune ‘Galopede’ which is on the Chimes of Dunkirk companion CD. We often end a community dance with this dance.
If you have a live band, have them play an extra C section the last time through at the end of the dance and have each of the successive top couples keep going down the middle while the rest of the dancers move up the outside.  Sometimes we practice this final figure ahead of time, sometimes we don’t.

Zip It Up not in handout.
In NEDM’s Sashay the Donut collection

• Download: ZipItUp.pdf

This works perfectly with a three-part tune: Try either the three part jig to reel Quadrille Jos Bouchard/Reel Beatrice on NEDM’s Sashay the Donut CD or Reel de Rimouski on NEDM’s Any Jig or Reel CD. You can also do it to a regular 2-part (AABB) jig or reel and have each time through the dance take up 1.5 of the tune, OR you can ignore the phrasing of the tune, let the dance take its natural course, and start the forward and back at the nearest 8-bar phrase OR OR OR if you are leading this at a community dance, after calling for a while you can stop calling and let each set find their own natural rhythm.  The sets will naturally get out of synch with
each other: one set will be sashay while the other is poussetting.  Stop the dance by calling, at the end, a partner swing for everyone.

Durham Reel in the handout.
In NEDM’s Chimes of Dunkirk collection.
We used ‘Slow G’ from NEDM’s ‘Sashay the Donut’ CD;
Assembly (the same band that recorded Other Side of the Tracks) at their dreamy best.  This dance was first published in John Playford’s ‘Dancing Master’ in 1651.

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