NEW: Friday, May 28, 7:30 PM: Virtual Concert with Dave and Amber, Virtual Dancing with Suze St. John
If you do not receive our emails and would like to be added to the list, please contact us at mmtdcolumbia@gmail.com.
We hope that you and your loved ones are safe and continue to be so. We look forward to the time when we can dance in person again!
Join us via Zoom for an online concert and dance featuring music by Amber Gaddy and Dave Cavins, and calling to recorded music by Suze St. John. Friday, May 28 at 7:30 PM Central Time.
Amber and Dave are Columbia favorites and a staple of the mid-Missouri old-time music scene. Suze St. John from Arizona has become a Zoom dance calling expert and knows how to communicate dance moves to a wide range of people.
The Zoom link to join the event will be sent to the MMTD email list. If you are not receiving our emails and want the link, please send a request to mmtdcolumbia@gmail.com.
You can watch and listen on Facebook live at either our MMTD page: https://www.facebook.com/midmotraditionaldancers or our MMTD group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/mmtd.como
If you haven’t tried online dancing, yet, you should give it a try. You dance in your own living room alone or as a couple with other “ghost” dancers. It works remarkably well and is a lot of fun. It’s not the same as in person dancing, but for the time being, it’s the next best thing! We hope you can join us for this great evening of music and dancing!
Join us on Saturday, May 8th for our Gala –
Celebrating One Year of Virtual Dancing!
Doors at 6:00PM, dance from 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM Central
Mid-Missouri Traditional Dancers is collaborating with communities across North America to produce a special Gala evening, celebrating one year of virtual dance.
Volunteers, bands, callers, sound techs, and organizers have all put in much effort over the past year to keep our communities connected, as we’ve found a way to dance in our homes. This special evening will honor those who have contributed to this creative effort.
We are thrilled to present twelve bands and eleven callers, as we pay tribute to the dance communities across North America:
Wear something sparkly or fancy, and join us for what will be an action-packed evening of pure joy and celebration! To attend the dance, click on the following link:
http://contradance.link/allhandsin
Join the event at 6:00PM Central on Saturday to join our community social room. There will be a brief introduction to virtual dancing at 6:30PM, and dancing will begin promptly thereafter.
Recommended donation is $10. All of our callers and helpers are volunteering, to help our musicians during a difficult time. You can make your donation to our musicians at this link: https://contradance.link/donation. Donations will be shared across the musicians participating, so please give generously.
See you at the dance!
Join us for a special evening of Missouri fiddling with our Fiddler’s Roundtable, featuring Little Dixie style fiddler John Williams of Central Missouri and Ozark style fiddlers Nathan Lee McAlister and David Scrivner from Southern Missouri.
John, Nathan, and David will be discussing and demonstrating some of the regional styles of fiddle playing and will treat us to a variety of tunes. There will be no called dances this evening, but there should be ample opportunity to clog, two-step, polka, waltz and otherwise cut a rug to the great tunes from these three great fiddler players.
The Zoom link to join the event will be sent to the MMTD email list. If you are not receiving our emails and want the link, please send a request ASAP to mmtdcolumbia@gmail.com. Or, you can also watch and listen on Facebook live at either our MMTD page: https://www.facebook.com/midmotraditionaldancers or our MMTD group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/mmtd.como
We hope you can join us for this great evening of music!
Saturday, April 10th: The Figments w/Drew Delaware
Doors at 6:00PM, dance from 6:30 PM – 7:45 PM Central
Mid-Missouri Traditional Dancers is joining forces with communities across North America to produce All Hands In, a virtual contra dance event open to dancers world-wide.
We are thrilled to present The Figments, known for their driving fiddle and guitar with the rich texture and rhythmic excitement of the clarinet. Elegant melodies evolve into raucous riffs, transcendent harmonies, and playful improvisations. The Figments are Anna Patton, Ethan Hazzard-Watkins, and Owen Morrison, who are also known for their roles in the dance band Elixir. You will remember Elixir’s wonderful concert presented last month for MMTD’s virtual Spring Breakdown! Don’t miss the chance to dance to their music with a great caller leading the way!
Our caller will be Drew Delaware from Toronto, Canada. Drew is an inventive and joyful caller, who has called virtual dances from coast to coast and beyond. Drew was an early advocate for creative adaptations of dance choreography for virtual dancing, and has contributed a dozen dances and countless adaptations to the virtual dance movement.
Because this dance uses pre-recorded video to feature our band, it is best if you join via laptop or PC; those joining on a mobile device will have difficulty if they like to pin or watch other dancers. Or join with both – use your PC for sound and your mobile device for pinned dancing.
Have you been to a virtual dance yet? If not, you might be surprised how fun it can be. In virtual (online) contra dancing, dancers interact with imaginary people (“ghosts”) in the majority of dances. Because of this, we presume that everyone in attendance has contra dancing experience. Walkthroughs are concise, and there won’t be a beginners’ lesson.
That said, when you dance alone in your living room, the contra line is exactly where you imagine it, and unexpected moves become glorious new choreography! So, everyone is always welcome to join.
To attend the dance, click on the following link:
http://contradance.link/allhandsin
Join the event at 6:00PM Central on Saturday to join our community social room. There will be a brief introduction to virtual dancing at 6:30PM, and dancing will begin promptly thereafter.
At in-person dances, an entry fee is collected; for All Hands In, we work on the honor system, asking dancers to make a donation to the band. Recommended donation is $10 (more if you can; less if you can’t.)
All of our callers and helpers are volunteering, to help our musicians during a difficult time. You can make your donation to our musicians at this link: https://contradance.link/donation
The Figments has put in a tremendous amount of work preparing this set of tunes specifically for our dance, so please give generously.
Toronto’s contra dance community hosts the infrastructure and provides the funding to produce All Hands In, with further volunteer assistance from participating communities like ours.
All Hands In is scheduled every 2nd and 4th Saturday evening until we can dance in person again. MMTD participates as a group ever 2nd Saturday. You can keep track of scheduled dances on the All Hands In Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/allhandsincontra) or the CDSS website: https://www.cdss.org/community/covid19/online-events.
We have a generous limit of 500 participants, so tell your contra dancing friends, and feel free to reshare this announcement.
See you at the dance!
