The Dog Branch Cats ensemble features many current and former leaders of the John C. Campbell Folk School including Bob Dalsemer, Jan Davidson, David Liden, & Martha Owen. They will be joined by friends & special guests for this very special Saturday night dance. Bob Dalsemer is a dance caller, folk musician, collector and writer who has served as the former Coordinator of Dance and Music Programs at The John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown. He has published West Virginia Square Dances (C.D.S.S., 1982), as well the cassette/booklet combinations Smoke On the Water: Square Dance Classics (1989), and When The Work’s All Done: A Square Dance Party for Beginners and Old Hands (1991).
Articles include “Southern Appalachian Music and Dance”, which appeared in the Smithsonian Institution’s 1994 program booklet, Rhythm & Roots: A Celebration of American Music and Dance, and “Collecting Traditional Appalachian Square Dances”, which was published in a collection entitled Communities in Motion: Dance, Community and Tradition (Greenwood Press, 1995) by Jane Woodside and Susan Spalding.
He is past president (1990-1996) of The Country Dance and Song Society and received that organization’s Lifetime Contribution Award in 2011.
The Saturday Night Community Dance is back indoors! Come feel the warmth in the walls of generations past. We’re ready to get back to the joy of dancing to live music with our kind callers and dance instructors. Join us as we step back into a favorite Folk School pastime. If it is your first-time trying set dancing, come early for simple walkthroughs and instruction on the easier dances. These century-old traditional dances are taught and will have anyone willing, holding hands and smiling.
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