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We went dancing - Contra or English - on 90 days or nights in 2019
- I might be off by one or two days

22 nights at Gender Free English Country Dance in JP
16 nights at Gender Free Contra Dance in JP
19 nights at BIDA Contra Dance in Cambridge
8 nights at Challenging Contras at the Scout Houe in Concord , MA
3 nights at Harvard Square English in Cambridge
6 days/nights at LCFD Dance Camps in Woodstock, CT and Becket, MA
3 days/nights at the Dance Flurry in Saratoga Springs, NY
3 days/nights at NEFFA in Mansfield, MA
2 nights at Thursday night Contra Dance in Concord, MA
1 night at Village Contra in NYC
1 day/night at the Peterborough, NH Snowball
3 days/nights at Beantown Stomp in Cambridge
1 night at the New Years Eve Contra Dance in Concord (+ a few minutes of the 2018 one)
1 night at the English Gala in Concord

And we are starting 2020 off on a roll. A few minutes this morning at the New Years Eve dance in Concord, Challenging Contra on Friday in Cocord, Saturday night at the English Gala in Concord, and Sunday night at BIDA in Cambridge.

English Country Dancing in JP on Nov 8
Moonlight on Nov 9
Berliner Philharmoniker in Symphony Hall on Nov 11
Harvest Ball (Contra dance and elegant dinner) in JP on Nov 12
Boston Lyric Opera: Greek on Nov 16
Contra Dance at the Scout House ion Concord on Nov 17
B Minor Mass on Nov 18
Emerson String Quartet in Jordan Hall on Nov 20
BIDA Contra Dance in Cambridge on Nov 20
English Country Dancing in JP on Nov 22

At our English Country Dance series as is common at many such dances the caller writes the name of each dance that is called on a whiteboard. I photograph it and then enter the names in a database and post a PDF to our webpage.

 When Bob Golder comes to our dances he likes to do a bit of artwork with humor - here are some samples.This one was put on the whiteboard several years ago and we have carefully preserved it. Below is the board from the Dec 27 dance and a portion from the March 13 dance where he "corrected" a dance name.

This weekend was the New England Folk Festival. It takes place at the Mansfield Middle & High schools from Friday evening through Sun afternoon. There are 10 - 15 activities going on at any time with big dance sessions in the two gyms.

Our group runs a food booth in the Middle School cafeteria. We sell Italian food + lots of other stuff: pasta with tomato, pesto, or butter sauce, with meatballs or veggie balls (large or small), + hotdogs, + meatball subs + muffins, scones, cookies croissants, + hot/cold coffee, tea, lemonade, + hardboiled eggs, salad, fruit cup, + yogurt. At breakfast time there were popovers and corn-cheddar frittatas. We had about 30 volunteers. I worked there for about 15 hours - at unload-setup / teardown-load and as a food server. Profits go to our various dance groups. It really is lots of fun doing this. We have a great group of people who all work together well and and fun bantering with the customers - quite a few of whom many of us know from dances and previous festivals. The school staff - maintenance and kitchen are all extremely helpful and friendly and it is a pleasure to work with them. (This was not really true at the Natick High school where NEFFA used to be held).

When not working I did some contra dancing and some English Country dancing. We got home after 7 last night, and took short naps. Then strangely we decided to not go to the BIDA contra dance in Cambridge - the fact that my legs didn't want to walk or stand had a bit to do with that decision.

There are various vendors - clothes, decor, musical instruments, CDs. We bought two more skirts - as if we really needed them.

I got a chance to have productive talks with several film makers who will help in various consulting or other roles to be determined. LCFD is planning on making a video soon about our Gender Free dance movement; still lots of decisions to make as to what the emphasis is - a documentary - or more "marketing" oriented.

I wanted to talk to some sound people because we are going to replace our ancient (>20 years old) sound system mixer but didn't get a chance to do that. (This morning I got our mixer/amp back from a successful repair to one of the volume sliders).

All in all it was a great weekend - lots of fun - talked and danced with lots of people. It'll be a few days before we know how much many we made but all signs look good since we sold out almost all our food.

I lost my button with the red footed boobie feet in this icon, but I can make another one.

Last night we had the 14th Anniversary of our Gender Free English Country Dance (ECD) series. This dance was started by Michael Cicone and Rob Dobson after their visits to the Heather & Rose Dance group in Oregon where Gender Role free ECD started and has continued for every 2nd, 4th, and 5th Tuesday since they started it. We dance in the UU Church in Jamaica Plain. For last night's dance Graham Christian was the leader and our band was Jacqueline Schwab on piano and Edan MacAdam Somer on fiddle. It was a great night with good attendance and Graham's selection of dances and the music was superb.


When the dance first started Michael and Rob were the organizers and leaders and the music was recorded. There are some really fine recordings available. Later on they got a grant and were able to pay for musicians some of time. Now we've expanded with quite a few regular leaders and a number of musicians who volunteer their time so it is rare that we use recorded music. Occasionally such as last night we are able to pay the musicians. We don't earn quite enough at the door to pay the rent but since we as part of Lavender Country & Folk Dancers participate in a massive fund raising effort at the New England Folk Festival (NEFFA) where volunteers run a food booth we are able to keep the dance going - although sometimes attendance is pretty sparse.

If you don't know what English Country Dancing is but you've seen a Jane Austen movie then you've seen it in action. In Gender Free dancing it doesn't matter which role you dance in so the terminology has been modified but all the classical and newly created dances can be done that way.