Lonesome Fiddle Blues

Where have all the flowers gone? Long time passing. Where have all the flowers gone? Long time ago. Where have all the flowers gone? Girls have picked them every one. When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?

We're wondering where the community dancers have gone? Long time since we've seen them around. We had a good turnout last summer at the dances we did around the area and folks seemed to have a genuinely good time. This winter is not as successful, for us or some other people who have been working hard to promote contradancing at the community level.

Two community dances were scheduled here in our home town. Flyers were put out, an ad was placed in the folk newsletter, a notice was published in the community newsletter and a request was made to note it in the school's weekly letter to parents as well as the community newspaper. No one showed at the first dance and only two people showed for the second dance (they stayed long enough to listen to us play a couple of sets for them). Tonight we went to Strong to help an organizer with her dance and she had one dancer show up who was not part of her family. Another organizer is going to run her dance two more months and then she's giving up. It's disappointing. I wonder what community means to people, and I have to rethink what it means to me personally.

Any ideas?

We had a number of folks say they knew about the dances, and quite a few who said they'd be there. It's possible the weather wasn't perfect, or the darkness of early evening encouraged them to stay hunkered down in their homes, or maybe they caught a cold or had a last minute change in their schedule. I get that things happen, we make those choices ourselves sometimes and end up staying home rather than going out... I do understand. Still, it's hard to believe there is NO ONE in these communities who wants to bring their children, or neighbors, or parents, or anyone out for a few hours of community interaction once a month or so, to a place that is CLOSE to their home, for $5 or less per person.

We've talked about more advertising, more bells and whistles like making the dance part of another activity so people are already out, and those things are true. But the bottom line is, in my mind, what is community and what does it take to get neighbors out to see each other? Even if you aren't a dancer, it's a pretty good deal to go out and listen in on some great music.

There, that's my soap box speech for the evening!

Seriously, if you have ideas, please send them along. The up side of our evenings out have been some great "live" practices in some wonderful locations.

If for some reason you read this and think you'd like to support your local community dances, there are still a couple more opportunities before they totally disappear from the small town venue. February 16 there is a dance scheduled in Fairfield Center at the Grange, it's on the main road just outside of Waterville so it's definitely accessible to many folks around here. The other opportunity is on Leap Day, February 29 in Strong at the Forster Memorial Building right in town. Strong is just a short drive north of Farmington and it has just about the most beautiful dance hall we've seen anywhere! Check it out before this venue also shuts down due to lack of interest. Need more information? Email us or post a comment!

Lonesome Fiddle Blues can be found in the Fiddler's Fakebook.