"The Joy Which Comes From Doing Games Together"
--from the first Mountain Folk Festival flyer, January 1935

Berea, Ky. -- The 70th annual MOUNTAIN FOLK FESTIVAL will take place at Berea College on March 10 and 11th, 2006 in Berea College's Seabury Center, with events for both registered participants and the public.

The MOUNTAIN FOLK FESTIVAL celebrates young people folk dancing and learning to folk 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 folk traditions of the region. 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 to learn new dances.

The festival starts on Friday with Danish-style warm-ups taught by a teacher from the Danish Exchange of Berea College, followed by a day of dancing and singing. In the evening there is a dance party. Saturday is more of the same, including special workshops on morris dancing, clogging, and couple dances, among other dances. In the evening the Festival ends with a Gala Dance Party led by Bob Dalsemer, and with music by local festival musicians.

Saturday afternoon also includes 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, replicas of English church warden's "bacca" pipes, and sometimes in specially made English wooden-soled clogs. Berea musicians Al and Alice White, and Atossa Kramer provide live music. The public is encouraged to come and enjoy this spectacle.

The Gala Dance Party begins with a dance welcoming the coming spring season in a centuries old "dancing in the branches of May" with a dance called "The Beginning of the World (Sellinger's Round)".

Internationally known dancer, dance musician, teacher and author of many books about traditional dancing, BOB DALSEMER, serves as the teacher and caller for the MOUNTAIN FOLK FESTVAL. Bob is Coordinator of Music and Dance Programs at the John C. Campbell Folk School, Brasstown, NC and the former President of the Country Dance and Song Society of America. With many years of calling experience, an easy-going 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-directors of the Festival are Pamela Corley-Slowkowski and Jennifer Rose. Pamela is ritual dance coach of the Berea College Country Dancer women and founder of three seasonal display dance groups. Jennifer Rose grew up with the traditions of the Mountain Folk Festival, and is an internationally known, talented and energetic performer and teacher. She is also director of Berea's International Folk Festival, ARTE VIDA.

The MOUNTAIN FOLK FESTIVAL was started in 1935 as part of Berea College's outreach to the young people of the mountains. An article in the January 1935 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK magazine, which was published for many years in Berea 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 recreation services. Students were housed in the dorms for 25 cents a night, and the leaders could get a room at the Tavern for $1 a night, three to a room.

Author of the article, Marguerite Butler, the first chairperson of the Festival, ends the article:

" 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. All events are free and open to all. For more information, please call Darlene Stillwaggoner at 859-985-3431.