Workshops
Workshop Notes
Long Island AOSA Workshop
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Dear Long Island AOSA Teachers,
We had such a great time with you today; thanks for coming and for your enthusiastic participation.
Special thanks for Heather Olsen who was our contact person - we have been planning this together by phone and e-mail since last February.
Click here to skip down to workshop notes
YOUR HOMEWORK:
Go dancing!
You will be that much a better dance teacher if you experience the joy of dance as a dancer.
Here is your local Long Island Traditional Music Association, LITMA, that has listings of Long Island dances (click on the "dance" tab at the top):
Here is a great website for finding dances in other parts of the country:
For a resource of contra dance websites go to:
Mary Alice and I mentioned two workshops we are doing next summer: Adult Village Harmony (9-day SATB singing camp - Aug 7 - 16) go to
and select Summer Camps and Workshops
We also mentioned a five-day, 3-credit course we are teaching at Hartt School of Music in West Hartford, CT: Rich Traditions and New Creations: Dance, Song, Storytelling and Literature in the Music Classroom.
Information on that course will be posted at the Hartt Summerterm website probably in January:
or e-mail dehansen@hartford.edu for more information.
You can keep track of upcoming Amidon workshops by checking out our workshop schedule at:
http://www.amidonmusic.com/workshops/index.html
or you could subscribe to the Amidon e-mail list. I send postings maybe once a month - the classic format is Dance Workshop - Announcements - Musings. Here is the most recent one: Newsletter #12
It includes detailed notes on teaching the Sicilian Vowel Dance.
We talked some about our son Sam Amidon:
and about his upcoming show in New York City:
http://madmuseum.org/DO/public%20programs/MIX%20at%20MAD.aspx
HERE IS A LIST OF THE DANCES WE DID, WITH FURTHER NOTES ON EACH DANCE:
BLAYDON RACES
p. 12 in the handout.
in NEDM's Chimes of Dunirk collection
We used 'Irish Jig Medley' from NEDM's 'Sashay the Donut' CD for this.
We did this is a mixer, but you can also do it with younger children without changing partners.
We often call this at weddings. We always start teaching this, as we do with any circle mixer, by having the dancers promenade and defining the gents/moons/peanut butter/inside partners and the ladies/stars/jelly/outside partners.
PEPPERELL STOMP
p. 13 in the handout.
(Not in any of our NEDM collections).
We used 'Irish Reel Medley' from NEDM's 'Sashay the Donut' CD for this. It is great for a wide range of ages and for a community dance.
GOING TO ALBERTA
p. 16 in the handout
In NEDM's Sashay the Donut collection, and we used for the music the Going to Alberta cut on NEDM's Sashay the Donut CD.
Marian Rose composed this dance, which is a GREAT way to teach the ballroom position (used for the waltz, the polka, and for a contra dance swing) at the same time as a simple polka step. We have found this to be a great dance for little kids, big kids mixed ages, community dance, in short, for anyone. You can do it as an a cappella singing game, or accompany
it with piano, guitar, accordion, or Orff instruments, or do it to the music of the Sashay the Donut CD. Marian lives in Alberta, but you can sing:
"I was going to Long Island."
"I was going to the City."
"I was going to Manhattan."
"I was going to the Hamptons."
You get the idea.
TREE SONG
p. 14 in the handout.
in NEDM's Down in the Valley collection. We used the music from the 'Down in the Valley' CD.
Lorraine Hammond, who composed this wonderful singing game, is a songwriter and musician, and the best known Appalachian dulcimer player in the country. She is in the greater Boston area. The piano arrangement on the CD is Peter's. We find this to be a calming, centering dance,
both for the children and for ourselves.
CHOOSING PARTNERS
We think it is a real gift to children to teach them how to choose their own partners. I like to frame this in 'Kings' and 'Queens' language to help the
children get over their self consciousness over choosing partners.
Here is my sequence:
I talk about Kings and Queens and how they needed to have fun too, how in their dances they realized it was more fun for each of them to dance with different Kings and Queens, and so they figured out an efficient and respectful way of choosing partners:
Everyone repeat: May I please have this dance.
Everyone repeat: Yes, thank you.
They practice the answer: I ask:
May I please have this dance?
They answer Yes, thank you.
They practice asking:
May I please have this dance?
I answer: Yes, thank you.
I demonstrate choosing a queen for a partner.
Then I do it again, describing the steps:
Step 1: the approach
Step 2: eye contact
Step 3: the question
Step 4: the answer
Step 5: I put out my hand.
Step 6: Queen (Susan) takes my hand.
Step 7: We hang on and walk to the music, to the
top of the set.
Step 8: I stand on King's side, Queen Susan stands
on Queen's side, we take both hands to face each
other, nose, toes and bellybutton.
Step 9: We drop hands.
That was an example of a King asking a Queen,
now for an example of a Queen asking a King:
any volunteers?
KINGS AND QUEENS
p. 11 in the handout.
In NEDM's Sashay the Donut collection
We used 'On the Danforth' from NEDM's 'Other Side of the Tracks' CD for this dance. You might also use our other version of 'On the Danforth' which is on our 'Sashay the Donut' CD.
Before we teach this dance we will dub each child a King or a Queen, and talk to them (sometimes while the music is playing to help sustain the mood) about what it means to be a King and Queen: They have royal posture, they never rush, they make good decisions, they are very attractive; basically describing the ideal King/Queen or, which, in my mind is being the very best person they can be. This is in the style of an historic English country dance.
I made this dance up on the spot with a 2nd grade class. Since then we have discovered that it is a great dance for older elementary school children as well. It is in the style of an historic English Country Dance
VOTING SONG
p. 6 on the handout.
This is on our 'I'll Never Forget' CD; our son Sam and Stefan sing it when they were both sopranos. We have never nailed this down, but we think that Jane Sapp wrote this with some teenagers in Selma Alabama; the
perfect place to write a song about the importance of voting.
PICTURE BOOKS
Ref. Picture Books/Music Bibliography,
p. 18 in the notes
The Whales
In the Fiddle is a Song
Summertime
This Little Light of Mine
Mother Earth
SICILIAN VOWEL DANCE
p. 12 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 start on the inside." Those pointing to the outside say, "I start on the outside." That is the direction they start going when they do the big, no hands, stay-with-partner grand right and left.
See more extensive notes in our last newsletter/email - #12.
FOX WENT OUT ON A CHILLY NIGHT
p. 2 in handout
This is on the Amidons' Faerie's Gift CD
What great language in this song, right from the start: "He had many a mile to go this night...The ducks and the geese are kept therein...He grabbed the grey goose by the neck and he flung a duck across his back...Old Mother Tippertopper jumped out of bed and out of the window she cocked her head crying, "John, John,"...The fox, he said "I better flee with my kill...Then the fox and his wife without any strife, they cut up the goose with a fork and a knife...."
If children get involved in the story of this song they will memorize this great poetry very quickly. Make up your own story introduction to this on your own or collaboratively with your students.
OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT
p. 4 in the handout
A picture book of the poem is referenced in the handout bibliography.
This is on the Amidons' Faerie's Gift CD. We encourage you to make up your own songs to poems, and see how it makes you, the children, and the poem come alive.
FAERIE'S GIFT
This is on the Amidons' Faerie's Gift CD
faerie'sgift.pdf
MAMA BUY ME A CHINEY DOLL
This is on Mary Alice Amidon's Songs for a Singing Family CD
Sam, age 2 1/2, can't sing the song without telling the story.
Sam's 27 now, and is touring almost constantly in Europe and the United States, singing old traditional American songs to his own quirky and beautiful banjo or guitar harmonizations, backed up by a variety of musicians.
As I mentioned in the workshop; when Sam was grunting his way through the story it was not that he did not remember the story, he knew it perfectly well; one image flowing into another. What he was doing was turning those images into language. That is one of the secrets of the power of storytelling. When you tell a story, you are turning your images into language and the children turn that language back into images. When children retell that story, they are turning their images back into language.
CLASSIC FOLKTALES BRAINSTORM
Just a few I remember from your great brainstorm: Three Bears, Little Red Riding Hood, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, Very Hungry Caterpillar, Ugly Duckling, Three Little Pigs, Chicken Little, Hansel and Gretel, The Mitten, Three Billy Goats Gruff and more and more. TRY TELLING YOUR STUDENTS STORIES, especially stories you love and/or remember from your own childhood.
DURHAM REEL
p. 11 in the notes
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.
SILVER RAIN
p. 7 in the notes.
This is in our 'Beatitudes - (25) Amidon Choral Arrangements
book and companion CD.
How can we not enjoy SATB harmony singing when we are all together in a room with 100 or so folks who all read music and love to sing? This is also a reminder to all of us of how important it is for us to be fed artistically and musically as adults. We learned this song from Harry and Edith Barron who sang it in the Bruderhof, a spiritual pacifist community that fled Nazi Germany to England, and then, when WWII started, fled England
(now joined by an equal number of English folks) to Paraguay where they created a pioneer life out of the jungle, worked side by side, and sang and sang and sang.
They eventually moved to the United States, and Harry and Edith ended up in Brattleboro, VT. This is a great unison song for children. If you want, you can replace the words "and say a grace" with "with thankful heart".
LUNCH
DOWN IN THE VALLEY
p. 15 in handout.
In NEDM's Down in the Valley collection.
We did this as a scatter mixer. Mary Alice played the accordion, but it also works fine as an a cappella singing game
SOME DANCE TEACHING TIPS
Gent/Lady dancing
Have the girls all hold hands in a circle. Boys hold hands around the outside of the girls ("surrounding" them). Boys drop hands and step back. Girls drop hands and turn around and walk into a space between two boys.
See handout p. 11 for taking hands tips.
Mittens; front of your mitten on the front of your neighbor's mitten, thumb lightly on back; take hands drop hands take hands drop hands; posture; teach the forward separately from the back in the forward and back. Use a lot of different imagery to help them keep the circle big in the circle left and right (keep your posture, keep the balloon filled, don't get sucked into the gravity ball in the middle, etc).
All turn and face to the right (facing counterclockwise). Boys stay where you are, and girls turn and face the other way. There's your partner. If the numbers of boys and girls are not even you might need to create a couple of same gender couples.
Teaching the promenade into a circle: Shake partner's hand, hang on, take partner's left hand for teaching promenade; while promenading: inside person is the moon/peanut butter/gent, outside is the star/jelly/lady; four
steps of making a circle from a promenade: "Hang on to partner stop walking, hang on to partner face the center, drop hands, take hands.";
COMMENT CA VA?
p. 9 in notes
In NEDM's Sashay the Donut collection
Formation: circle of couples (not a mixer)
Music: Any reel (French Canadian is nice for this).
A1: Forward and back, forward and back
A2: Circle left, circle right.
B1: (Bow to partner) Allemande left corner,
dosido partner, Allemande left corner again.
B2: Promenade partner.
Exactly the same as 'La Bastringe' except for B2.
Mary Alice played for this, but you can use, say, Quebeqois Reel from our
NEDM Sashay the Donut CD.
When music starts, lead the students in clapping the first of each 8 beats; doing the dance with your hands; "thick" calling, then "thin" calling then no calling; saying the call right before the 'clap' or before the first beat of
the phrase and figure.
I'M GROWING UP
p. 3 in notes.
We have not put this on any of our CDs yet.
SAY WHAT YOU WANT
p. 5 in notes.
This is on Mary Alice's wonderful solo CD 'Keys to the Kingdom'. The four steps in conflict resolution Mary Alice mentioned are:
1) Say what you feel.
2) Say what you want.
3) Talk about it.
4) Then go have fun together.
MONTH BROTHERS
MonthBrothers.pdf
ACT OUT MONTH BROTHERS
CIRCLE WALTZ MIXER
p. 10 in the handout
In NEDM's Sashay the Donut collection.
We used 'In Continental' Waltz from the 'Sashay' CD for the music. This is a wonderful dance for a wedding. Sometimes we do it at a community dance. The partner two hand turn at the end of the sequence is the best solution for most school and community dance situations. If you are leading this at an adult dance or a wedding it is best to replace that final two hand turn with a short waltz in place.
Keep on dancing!
Best,
Peter and Mary Alice Amidon