Most of the people who attend bluegrass festivals are listeners and often also pickers. Sometimes the music is so good that people get up and dance. Any genre of music will usually have that component. Here’s a clip from one on the first bluegrass dance troupes, the Green Grass Cloggers:
You almost never see a drum set on a bluegrass or old time stage but if somebody is playing a limber jack or dancing on stage you have percussion. And it can add to the music in a special way. On many of my CDs the dancers are deservedly credited along with the instrumentalists.
That brings me to my next question for you instrumentalists. Would you be able to travel to France and support a traditional folk dance group? Here’s the pitch:
My name is Matt Schmidtlein, and I volunteer with the International Dance
Arts Collective. We are a group based in the Sacramento area, focused on
preserving and spreading understanding of folk arts, primarily in the areas
of music and dance. To our knowledge, we are the only group including
children in the US who are part of the International Council of
Organizations of Folklore Festivals and Folk Arts (CIOFF)
<https://www.cioff.org/> . CIOFF partners with UNESCO, and is accredited by
the Committee of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible
Cultural Heritage.
Our group has been accepted to represent America folk dance at the Festival
des Enfants du Monde <https://rife.asso.fr/> , a CIOFF affiliated folk
music/dance festival that will be held this July in Saint Maxine L’ecole,
France. Participation requires a live band. But conflicts are preventing
some of our prior band members from participating this year. So we are
trying to connect with musicians (potential guitar, banjo, and fiddle) who
are interested in participating on our tour.
Well who wants to scare up the best CBA band members to fill in and perform in France? Contact out own Ted Kuster if you might be interested. He can then contact Matt, who is in charge of the gig.
I can’t close without mentioning our old friend Danicin’ John Lonczak who passed away three years ago. John would be very happy that people are getting out there and dancing to the music as he did for so many years and at so many festivals.
