I don't care how far away you live! All roads lead to the fabulous city on 3 (or 4, or 5, depending on who's doing the reckoning) lakes this weekend, to Great Hall in the Memorial Union for this year's Folk Ball. Dance and singing workshops during the day, and fabulous parties on Friday and Saturday night, all live music, and all admission is FREE (donations welcome.)Mr. Ether will be playing both evenings: Friday, 9 p.m., with the all acoustic Veseliyka (village-style Balkan band -- does that make them Village People? Just wondering.) Then if you really want to rock, stay up late Saturday night for the Reptile Palace Orchestra at 11 p.m. And many other good bands too.
This is one of my favorite events of the year. I've divulged before that I was a folk dancer in a previous life. I don't dance much anymore, but Folk Ball is fun and exciting. For one thing, hundreds of people come, dancers and otherwise, the fun is infectious, and by the time Mr. Ether & the Reptiles play all the curious onlookers have become dancers and it is a veritable folk dancing mosh pit! It is also very family friendly, and there are lots of little kids. My own kids have been going since Sparkly Sea Cow was a babe in arms. (Cinderbelle will have to miss it this year. She may be in the hometown of the Tamburitzins, but I don't think they have anything like this!)
In my opinion, people don't dance enough anymore, not this kind of social, intergenerational dancing. Mr. Ether and I were incredibly lucky to have been involved in it as teenagers, and actually folk dancing was a popular pastime at our hippy dippy alternative high school. It was one of the ways that Mr. Ether and I courted (although I pretended not to know that's what we were doing at the time.) The occasional time that we go to recreational folk dancing these days, there are very few young people. They don't know what they're missing, truly.
On the other end of the generational spectrum, I can't leave this without commenting on my favorite local dancers, Lou and Fran, who are a dancing couple in their eighties! I absolutely love watching them!
So, if you're in the area, maybe I'll see you on Friday or Saturday.
(This is the large print version of my blog post. Sometimes blogger is such a pain!)
