| Musicians and callers are almost literally the beating heart of our contra dance community. North Berkshire Community Dance has provided what support it can to them during the pandemic, when much of their livelihood has been taken away. We have continued to line up performers through the summer and fall, and as the pandemic has caused us to cancel those dances, we have compensated the musicians (at half a normal fee). It’s not much, and Lord knows, we don’t pay our performers enough in normal times, but it’s something. This holiday concert is one small new way we hope to lend some support to our musicians, and it will be great to see all your faces again! Please come, and donate if you can, and enjoy! A night of (virtual) music in the pandemic You may remember fiddler and North Bennington native Matthew Christian, who came up from Brooklyn to perform for us in our first summer. He had planned to lead the band for our December 2020 dance also, but since we can’t have a dance, he’s giving us a concert instead. “If contra, bluegrass, klezmer, and Woody Guthrie had a baby, it would be this evening of piping hot music,” Chistian says. You can join the concert on zoom, and we hope you can come and smile with us! The same date and time as our once regularly scheduled dance: second Saturday this month (Dec. 12) at 7:30 p.m., we will get together virtually for a concert. Tickets will be a $10 suggested donation to support the musicians, and you can contribute through Paypal to m.andrews.christian@gmail.com, or to Matthew-Christian-5 on Venmo or write to 716 Ocean Ave #17, Brooklyn, NY 11226. “I know Ben from college at Bard, where we were half of the student contra dance band the Annandale Ramblers,” Christian says. “Since college, Ben has been a labor organizer, singer and instrumentalist on piano and guitar … and this year Ben and I have collaborated on the Meadowport Arch concert-jam series in Prospect Park.” Sepcial guests may join them, including Tobi Erner, a Harlem-based social worker whose working-class bluegrass songs speak to her work at the intersections of violence, immigration and pandemic; David Kinder on DADGAD guitar and perhaps an Ella Fitzgerald cover; and Hannah Sloane-Barton, another quarter of the Annandale Ramblers. |
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North Berkshire Community Dance 