The 68th Annual MOUNTAIN FOLK FESTIVAL will take place at Berea College
on March 12 and 13 at Seabury Center, Berea College, with events
for both registered participants and the public.
The MOUNTAIN FOLK FESTIVAL celebrates young people dancing and learning
to dance. Started as part of the outreach programs of Berea College,
the Festival has trained both dancers and dance leaders who have
carried on the cultural folk traditions of the area. Traditional
music and dance from the British Isles, Denmark, and Appalachia are
taught to children from the fourth grade through high school. Groups
who have been learning these dances at school and in community groups
come together to share what they have learned and learn new dances
The Festival stars Friday, with a day of learning and practicing
dances already learned, singing, and ends with an evening dance.
Classes continue on Saturday morning. Internationally known dancer,
dance musician, teacher and author of many books about traditional
dancing BOB DALSEMER, will serve as the teacher and caller for
the MOUNTAIN FOLK FESTIVAL.
At 6:15 p.m., outside Berea’s Boone Tavern (weather permitting),
the public is invited to a traditional celebration of English seasonal
display dances called Morris dances, where dancers wear colorful
costumes, including flowers, bells and ribbons. They dance with
sticks, swords, wooden weaving bobbins (some from Churchill Weavers),
replicas of English church warden’s “baccy” pipes,
and sometimes in specially-made English wooden-soled clogs. Berea
musicians Al and Alice White, and Atossa Kramer will provide live
music.
The musicians and dancers then lead a processional, or parade
dance, from Boone Tavern to Seabury Center, where the group will
welcome the coming spring season in a centuries old “dancing
the branches of May” with a dance called “The Beginning
of the World. Coordinator -- the traditional word in this case
is “Squire” -- will be Berea dancer, dance caller and
teacher Katy Tarter. In the event of inclement weather, the tour
will be held in the old gym in Seabury Center.
The Gala Dance with caller Bob Dalsemer will follow at 7:30 p.m.,
also in the old gym. Both events are free and open to the public.
Dalsemer is the Coordinator of Music and Dance Programs at the
John C. Campbell Folk School, Brasstown, N.C., and former President
of the Country Dance and Song Society of America. With more than
25 years of calling experience, an easygoing manner, and exceptional
teaching skills, Bob is one of the country’s most popular
traditional dance callers. His repertoire of dances includes a
wide range of American contras, squares and circles as well as
English and Danish dances.
Co-director of the Festival is Berea recording artist and dance
teacher, Jennifer Rose. Jennifer grew up with the traditions of
the Mountain Folk Festival and is a talented and energetic performer
who makes these songs and dances available to new generations.
Also co-directing is Pamela Corley Slowkowski, ritual dance coach
of the Berea College Country Dancers and founder of several seasonal
display dance groups in Berea.
The MOUNTAIN FOLK FESTIVAL was started in 1935 as part of Berea
College’s outreach to the young people of the mountain. An
article in the January 1935 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK magazine, which
was published in Berea for many years by the Council of the Southern
Mountains, tells of plans:
“Our first mountain folk festival will…be a festival
of folk games, folk songs and folk plays. Berea was chosen because…we
turn to Berea as a sort of mother of mountain schools. The festival
is primarily for the joy of sharing and passing on such folk material …One
of the great reasons for the occasion, however, is the joy which
comes from doing games together.”
Groups came from Kentucky, North Carolina and Ohio, from the many
Settlement Schools and church recreational services. Students were
housed in the dorms for 25 cents per night, and the leaders could
get a room at the Tavern for $1 a night, three in a room.
Author of the article, Marguerite Butler, the first chairperson
of the Festival, ends the article saying
“Perhaps in some ways this will be a unique festival, as
there will be no competition, no judging, no prizes, no banners,
no votes for the best. We come together for the joy of sharing
with each other the rich store of the folk material which has come
down to us through the ages.”
The public is warmly invited to watch a new generation of dancers,
singers and musicians share the joy of this folk material.
For more information, call Pamela Corley-Slowkowski at 859-985-3142
or visit the Mountain Folk Festival at Berea College’s website
- http://www.berea.edu/peh/dance/mff
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