Who are the Friends of Greenfield Dance? “The Friends” is a 501(c)(3) non-profit tax-exempt educational and cultural organization focused on promoting folk dance in the Greenfield, MA area. Our goals are to:
promote and support the development of cultural programs of music and dance
facilitate cooperation among musicians and dance community members
maximize participation in dance events
What do my membership dues support?
Skill workshops: Hambo | Flourishes | Calling
Annual contra events: New Year’s Eve Contra | Contra PROMenade | Fall Frolic
Special contra events: Positional calling contras | Memorial dances
Beginner-friendly contra series: by David Kaynor (help with hall fee)
Organizers’ meetings: Meetings that help coordinate between the nine different Greenfield contra and dance organizers.
Renovations to our home dance hall: The Guiding Star Grange building is operated and managed by the Grange and the Friends are able to (legally) contribute to some of the building renovation needs annually.
What benefits do I get by becoming a member?
Free Fall Frolic admission (with new or renewed membership)
$2.00 off admission to all Friends-sponsored events (except Fall Frolic)
A voice on which events and initiatives the Friends support!
Note: The Friends of Greenfield Dance have graciously allowed me to post this informational resource on their webpage as a public service to the dance community.
If
you’ve been dancing in the Valley a while, chances are you’ve heard about or
are already signed up for the Pioneer Valley Contra Dance (PVCD) listserve
which I administer and moderate independently as a benefit to the community.
This is a great space for sharing about upcoming community dance events or topics
related to the dancing in our community. If you are newer to dancing and want
to join, check the instructions below for how to join the listserve.
If you are already a subscriber to the PVCD list (on Yahoo), you will need to make a change in your subscription to stay connected.
As many of you have heard, Yahoo is making many changes in the listserve groups. While they are not going away soon it seems their days are numbered. So after 18 years on Yahoo Groups I have decided to move the PVCD group over to “groups.io”.
Eighteen years of PVCD conversations/posts have been archived, thanks to the help of Seth Seeger. Any posts from now until I close the Yahoo site will not be archived. This is another reason for you to make the switch now.
There are currently 544 members on the list. For me to transfer all that information to groups.io would cost $220 to have groups.io to do it or take me an inordinate amount of time that I do not have. Neither of those choices are going to happen.
I expect that it will take a few weeks before everyone has signed onto the new site. For that reason, please sign on ASAP but continue to use the old PVCD until you hear from me via the listserve.
To subscribe to the NEW listserve please send a blank email to . You will then get an email response asking you to respond by replying. Your first post will have to be monitored and approved before it will get posted, after that it should go through without delay. Sorry but this is a groups.io thing and I can’t change it.
The default setting is that any reply to an email will go back to the whole list. I know some would like me to change that to respond to the original sender only. I disagree as I want folks to be able to have a group decision on topics. Changing the default (not even sure I can) would prevent that. If you want to respond to an individual, their email should be visible somewhere in the email or header. Another reason to sign you name to each email you send as well as contact info if you want a private response.
Have you ever wanted to learn how to call contra dances? Learn from Bob Isaacs!
Teaching for all levels
Choreography
Planning a full evening
Working with musicians
Calling medleys
Getting to the next level
The series will be run 4 Saturdays in the Fall: 9/15, 9/29, 10/20, and 11/3/18, 12:00-4:00 PM at the Guiding Star Grange in Greenfield. There will also be an opportunity for some students to call a dance or two at the Fall Frolic at the Grange on November 4.
Cost is $80 -100 (with scholarships available) (includes a 90 page instruction manual). This series is limited to 12 students.
Please email Julie Bermant with questions or to indicate interest. Pre-registration is required.
This event it supported in part by the Outreach Fund of the Country Dance and Song Society.
This program is sponsored by the Friends of Greenfield Dance.
One of the most visible things the Friends of Greenfield Dance does is put on special events! These are the products of the hardworking Events Committee, currently composed of Liz Sturgen, Katie Olmstead, and Kate Kelliher, with the help and support of the FGD board members.
In 2017, the FGD hosted the 5th annual Contra PROMenade, a special Sunday Challenging Contra with Bob Isaacs, the 22nd annual Fall Frolic, a special hambo workshop, and coming up soon, the New Year’s Eve dance.
The Fall Frolic has a special place in our hearts. It is our annual membership drive/fundraiser dance, when we reach out to invite local dancers to become stakeholders in the Friends and the Guiding Star Grange dance community. The money we raise through memberships, donations, and special events such as these help support our mission to support the organizers of all the dance series at the Grange, as well as enhancements to the building itself. At each year’s Frolic, three bands and three callers gather some of the best that contra dancing has to offer, including often showcasing up-and-coming bands and callers that will be the stars of the future.
We are already looking forward to New Year’s Eve, the 2018 Prom and Fall Frolic, and who knows what other exciting surprises? The FGD will also be facilitating a series of callers’ workshops taught by renowned caller Bob Isaacs. Watch for more info about all these events throughout the year.
If you would like to become involved with helping put on these great events, please contact us. We always need volunteers, hosts for out of town performers and dancers, and future committee members.
A while ago I was watching a few dancers dancing a Hambo during a break when another dancer asked me how she could learn to Hambo. I mentioned that when I first started dancing 30+ years ago the Hambo was routinely done during breaks. Now it is only done on rare occasions. With that in mind, the Friends of Greenfield Dance decided to sponsor a Hambo workshop.
What is a Hambo? Hambo is a traditional dance that originated in Sweden in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is a couple dance in 3/4 time, danced to music played with a strong accent on the first beat and a tempo that varies from moderate to fast (100 to 120 beats per minute). The Hambo is a dance with a fixed pattern and tunes almost always have a corresponding eight measure structure.
Van Kaynor put us in touch with Jennifer Brosious and Laine Harris, a couple known for doing dance workshops at the Dance Flurry. On 11/18/17 27 dancers gathered at the Grange to learn Hambo. Van provided the music and Jennifer and Laine spent the next 2 hours teaching the skills needed to learn how to dance the Hambo.
At the end of the workshop a dancer, not participating in the workshop, came up from the basement and said that at first it sound like a cattle stampede was happening upstairs but at the end of the workshop it sound like a dance was happening.
After a 2 hour break for dinner, many workshop participants returned to the Grange to dance to the Moving Violations. During the break music was provided so that the workshop students had the chance to further hone their newly learned skills.
The Organizers of the Dances at the Guiding Star Grange met for the 4th time on 10/23/17, organized by the FGD board.
Representatives from most of the dance series were present. We discussed the “Dance Friend” button and introduced the “Wanted” poster that identifies the board members of FGD. Both are designed to encourage people to speak with us if they have any questions or concerns at any of the dances held at the Grange. We also got agreement from the organizers to introduce the concept of Dance Friends from the stage.
We discussed the issue of how to support all the dancers who dance at the Grange, including those who identify across the gender spectrum. New bathroom signs were proposed and supported by the organizers. The upstairs single stall bathroom is now clearly marked as gender neutral and accessible. The other bathrooms state that gender diversity is welcomed, and people can use the bathroom that best fits their identity. Signs also remind people of the gender neutral bathroom.
Other conversations included whether we wanted to meet more than twice a year. Although it would be helpful to be able to discuss issues in person more often, we acknowledged that more frequent meetings would likely lead to poorer attendance. We opted to keep to twice a year at present, with extra meetings an option.
We spoke about how to encourage attendance at dances. Free passes and other suggestions were discussed. A smaller committee will explore options.
We adjourned after two hours, agreeing the meeting had been productive.
On May 17, 2017, 17 organizers and FGD board members met for our fourth organizers’ meeting. After a delicious potluck meal, we settled into a discussion about issues related to the Grange and the dances held there.
Discussion included introducing the new closing list. The need for the list came out of previous discussions concerning clean up and lock up after a dance, and realizing that expectations had to be outlined clearly since so many different groups are responsible for those duties.
Organizers spoke frankly about attendance, admission prices and guarantees for bands and callers. Ways to increase attendance were brainstormed, and there was a brief discussion about advertising.
Ron Blechner shared responses from the recent survey the Amherst dance group had completed. He is continuing to look at the data to try to determine trends and patterns, and to determine the issues that are most important to local dancers. Ron stated he was looking for assistance in examining the data more completely.
The next meeting will be held in Greenfield, at the Grange. It will be held on a Sunday afternoon in October.
The Friends of Greenfield Dance is happy to announce that we will be offering a class in CPR/AED (automated external defibrillator) this spring.
This certificate CPR Course teaches participants how to recognize and treat life-threatening emergencies such as cardiac arrest, stroke, head injury, choking, and electrocution. In addition to CPR and choking relief, use of an AED is also taught. This course is 2 hours in length and costs $40/person.
This course will be taught by Nicole Thurrell, Recreation Therapist and Wilderness EMT. Nicole worked for almost a decade in wilderness therapy and residential treatment as a field instructor, health director, and admissions director. She has been an adventure racer, an ambulance worker, a clinician for kids with Autism, a raft guide, wilderness guide, kindergarten teacher, ropes course facilitator, and a mom. She lives in the Solar Village in Greenfield, MA.
Classes will be held at The Guiding Star Grange. Please go to https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WW22P27 to register for this class. Please pick what dates you are available to take this class.
Waltzing for the Grange was conceived and produced by John Howard, a Friends of Greenfield Dance member. It is a collection of previously released recordings from a sampling of the musicians who have graced the grange hall with their presence. We, the board of the Friends and the dance community at-large, graciously thank these artists for their kind donations. We ask you to support them by buying their CDs.
The ‘Waltzing for the Grange’ CD can be purchased by sending check or money order for $17.50 U.S. Dollars ($15 plus $2.50 s/h) to:
Friends of Greenfield Dance (FGD)
401 Chapman St.
Greenfield, Ma 01301
On September 24, 2015 the first meeting of Guiding Star Grange (GSG) dance organizers met with the Friends of Greenfield Dance (FGD). The goal of the meeting was to enhance collaboration between the various groups who organize dances throughout the month at the Grange. Organizers from four dances were represented at the meeting, with the other four organizers interested but unable to attend.
To provide some historical perspective, the predecessor of FGD, Friends of the Guiding Star Grange, had focused on fundraising for the renovation of the Grange building. With the transition to the new organization, Friends of Greenfield Dance, the focus widened to include ways to support traditional music and dance in the Greenfield area.Last March, two of the board members and two of the Greenfield dance organizers travelled to Ottawa to attend Puttin’ On the Dance 2, a meeting sponsored by CDSS to promote cooperation and communication among dance organizers on the east coast. That experience inspired this meeting to promote connection between the rich resources present at the Grange.
At the meeting, after a delicious potluck dinner provided by the Friends, the group used a process called the Four Hats to determine a topic on which to focus, and then used that process to aid discussion. The topic chosen was how to make the community more welcoming, and a lively and engaged discourse resulted. Minutes from that meeting are available. The group looked at ways to make newcomers feel more welcome, and ways to encourage positive communication between dance organizers and among dancers.
Those in attendance felt the meeting was a success. The suggestions raised will be followed up by the FGD, and a plan implemented to address some of the issues discussed. The organizers and the FGD made a commitment to meet on a regular basis, about every six months. Hopefully, the other organizers will be able to attend.
The Friends of Greenfield Dance is happy to announce that we will be offering a class in CPR/AED (automated external defibrillator) this spring.