Several people interviewed for this story described contra dancing as what you would see in a Jane Austen film. That might be more accurate if Jane Austen’s characters danced barefoot, wore Fitbits and moved so vigorously they had to stop to dry their face off with a towel or change their clothes. And if they cared less about class. While Jane Austen’s characters are typically nobility and spend much of their time concerned with status, this dance feels uniquely egalitarian.

http://www.nhmagazine.com/September-2017/Swing-Shift/

Dudley Laufman at Newport (photo by Murry Lerner, courtesy of David Millstone)

The Dancingmaster: Portrait of Dudley Laufman

We are seeking crowdfunding donations to support this exciting project, click on the link to make a secure donation using the Hatch Fund:
https://www.hatchfund.org/project/the_dancingmaster

Keith Murphy plays Dudley Laufman in an original musical theater work by Lawrence Siegel: September 23rd, 8 P.M., Peterborough Town House; September 24th, 7 P.M. Next Stage, Putney VT. Tickets will be available later this summer.

The Dancingmaster is a whimsical musical portrait of the legendary contra dance caller, Dudley Laufman. Dudley almost single-handedly provided the link between the old days of rural contradancing in the hamlets of New England, and the vibrant network of dances taking place every week throughout the United States and beyond. The Dancingmaster tells his story in his own words, adapted by composer Lawrence Siegel from his interview with Dudley in 2011. The character “Dudley” is played by the great traditional musician, Keith Murphy. Becky Tracy and Larry Siegel provide the musical accompaniment. Mary DesRosiers, a dancingmaster in her own right, creates original choreography performed by a group of traditional dancers from the Monadnock Region of New Hampshire.

These premiere performances are jointly sponsored by the Monadnock Folklore Society, Next Stage, and the Brattleboro Music Center. They will appeal to fans of traditional music and dance and at the same time to audiences for musical theater and classical music.

The story of The Dancingmaster is of a self-made, independent person finding a home and a life in rural New England: a life focused on the simple gifts of time to build your own house, garden, play music and dance, to develop pursuits out of step with the hectic pace of contemporary life. Dudley, as well as most of those participating in this production, exemplifies and champions these virtues.

The name Dudley Laufman is so closely associated with the contra and barn dances of New England that most long-term residents refer to local gatherings as “Dudley Dances.” Two forms of community dances evolved in New England — contra dances, done in lines with partners facing one another, and square dances featuring sets of four couples. After the Revolutionary War, dances such as these, associated with England, fell out of favor, except in the rural areas of the Northeast where they continued to occur in informal settings such as kitchen parties and barn dances. Laufman came to New Hampshire in 1947 to work at a dairy farm and began to attend these local dances. He called his first dance in 1948 and soon started his own musical group for the dances, which later became the Canterbury Country Dance Orchestra. Ernest Thompson, New Hampshire resident and author of On Golden Pond, succinctly conveys Laufman’s contributions to New England dance: “I think Dudley Laufman belongs in the pantheon of genuine American artists. He belongs in Franconia Notch, the real Old Man of the Mountain.”

A native of Newfoundland, Keith Murphy’s traditional song repertoire is based in Eastern Canada and Quebec as well as his current home, Vermont. He is also renowned for his work as a multi instrumentalist, including his distinctive Irish style guitar playing, French Canadian piano, as well as his work as a mandolin player. He is an accomplished composer and arranger in the realm of traditional music and has also composed for theater and film. Several of his compositions have been featured on the recent Ken Burns documentary on the Roosevelts. Keith is a faculty member of the Brattleboro Music Center and the artistic director of the BMC’s Northern Roots Traditional Music Festival in Brattleboro Vermont which he founded in 2008.
Becky Tracy has been a defining presence in some of the most popular and innovative contra dance bands to come out of New England, being the fiddler for both Wild Asparagus and Nightingale. Her sound is unmistakable: a distinctive clarity of tone, a rhythmic attack owing much to French Canadian playing and the melodic quality of Irish music.

Mary DesRosiers is a New Hampshire native who has been calling traditional American dances for over thirty years. She has taught the contra and square dances and singing games of New England to audiences of all ages in town halls, schools, and at music festivals around the country. Mary previously collaborated on choreography for Lawrence Siegel’s opera Village Store Verbatim, a work which served as inspiration for many towns across the country to research, write, and stage their own folk histories. Mary is dedicated to preserving the heritage of old-time music and dancing for all to share.

Lawrence Siegel is a composer, theater artist, traditional musician, and creator of a range of music through collaboration and innovation. For more than 25 years, in leading his Verbatim Project, he has facilitated and empowered groups to create original music-theater performances in their own voice, ranging from the quirks of small-town life in New England, to the redemptive telling of the Holocaust story through the acclaimed oratorio, Kaddish. Siegel’s Verbatim projects have been widely recognized as unique examples of public art.

These premiere performances are jointly sponsored by the Monadnock Folklore Society, Next Stage, and the Brattleboro Music Center. They will appeal to fans of traditional music and dance and at the same time to audiences for musical theater and classical music.

The Dancingmaster is not to be missed. We seek your support to pave the way to our two scheduled performances in September: September 23rd at the Peterborough Town House, in Peterborough, NH, sponsored by the Monadnock Folklore Society, and September 24th in collaboration with Next Stage Theater in Putney, VT. Our minimum goal is $3,500; our stretch goal is $6,500. These funds will directly support the excellent artists performing The Dancingmaster for you.

https://www.hatchfund.org/project/the_dancingmaster

Thanks so much for your interest and support!

The Nelson 250th Anniversary Committee invites the community to an all-day celebration of the town’s history on Saturday, July 8th. Activities begin at 10 AM and continue until 7 PM.

At 10 AM and again at 2 PM, there will be a presentation on the history of the Nelson Congregational Church, to be held at the Church.

At 12 noon, local dignitaries will gather for the bell ringing in the Old School House and the reading of proclamations from legislators.

The Ebenezer Hinsdale Garrison Re-enactment Group will provide a living history “day in the life” of ordinary folks from the time of the early days of Nelson. Wearing traditional clothing of the mid-18th century, they will demonstrate such things as cooking over an open fire, sewing, embroidery, making a broom, making a basket, butter churning, candle dipping, children’s games, music, demonstrating what a soldier or scout would carry, and possibly even musket firing.

There will be an exhibit of Things Made and Used in Early Nelson from clothespins to samplers at the Old Library.

R.P. Hale, Colonial Printer, will be operating an antique printing press and selling wood-cut prints.

The Nelson Fire Department will sell food for lunch to raise funds, and from 3 to 5 PM, there will be an Ice Cream Social ($5.00 to benefit the church) and Town Band Concert on the Nelson Congregational Church lawn.

Beginning at 5 PM, a Colonial Dance will be held in the Nelson Town Hall taught by Allison Aldrich Smith, Mistress of Dance. Music provided by Hunt Smith and R. P. Hale on instruments of their own making. Period dress encouraged but not required.

All ages are welcome. Admission is free. More information is available at http://nelsonhistory.org.

The Solstice Sisters return for a celebration of the Summer Solstice on June 30 at 8:00 PM at the Nelson Town Hall. Admission is $15/$12(Sr/Jr)

Alouette Iselin, Melanie Everard, Kim Wallach, and Heather Bower have been a mainstay of our Winter Solstice party for years, presenting a program of original and traditional and sometimes just wacky seasonal music. They decided that getting together for the solstice concert was so much fun that it was a shame it was only once a year. But wait …….. there are two solstices in the calendar year, what better excuse could there be?

So come celebrate the Summer Solstice, Fathers Day, the end of black fly season, St. John’s Day, the longest day of the year, Midsummer, Ivan Kupala night, Wianki, Jani, the shortest night of the year, the Red Sox or whatever floats your boat with a selection of music that only the Solstice Sisters could put together.

Monadnock Folklore Society presents Lula Wiles in concert, April 21st at the Nelson Town Hall. Starts at 8:00 PM; admission is $15/$12(Sr/Jr).

Though the band is young, all the members of Lula Wiles have spent their lives grounded in songs. Born in Maine to musical families, they began playing music together as kids at Maine Fiddle Camp, and eventually each made their way to Boston to study at Berklee College of Music. Isa and Ellie began performing as a duo in 2013, and Lula Wiles was born when Mali joined the band a year later. When Lula Wiles performs, the band’s many years of friendship are clear from their effervescent vocal blend and electrifying musical chemistry. Now based in Boston’s thriving and close-knit roots music community, Lula Wiles have performed at premier festivals and clubs throughout the East Coast, including Club Passim, the Sinclair, Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, Fresh Grass Festival, and Green River Music Festival. They were also selected as Official Showcase Artists for the 2016 Folk Alliance International conference. Roots authority No Depression predicts Lula Wiles “will be a huge force on the Americana scene for years to come.” All proficient vocalists, multi-instrumentalists, and songwriters, the three women of Lula Wiles are each uniquely powerful in their own right; but combined, they are a force to be reckoned with.

If you ask Lula Wiles about their self-titled debut album, they’ll be quick to tell you it was a long time coming. The album’s eleven original songs were written over the course of the preceding four years, tested and lived in on stages and in bedrooms and backyards in Maine and Boston, and reborn in November and December 2015 through the band’s collaboration with producer/ guitarist Adam Iredale-Gray and drummer Sean Trischka. Self-released on May 27, 2016, the album is Lula Wiles’ first creative statement, an exploration of their sound. The band is deeply rooted in traditional folk music, but equally deep is their devotion to modern songcraft. The songs span from heartbreak-drenched acoustic ballads to honky-tonk swagger to contemporary grit and back again, all anchored by rich vocal harmonies. Their lyrics are fiercely honest, littered with reinvented folk tropes and evocative images – a rainy field of daisies, a dusty bar lit by Christmas lights, an unmade bed. Acclaimed singer-songwriter Aoife O’Donovan calls the record “a stunning collection of self-penned songs about love, loss, and drinking – the perfect blend of modern and timeless.” The three band members swap instruments and frontwoman duties, with six songs penned and sung by fiddler/guitarist Ellie Buckland, four by fiddler/ guitarist Isa Burke, and one by bassist Mali Obomsawin. Onstage, the band gathers tightly around a single microphone for a spirited live show that resonates like a whiskey-slap to the heart.