Celo, NC (the Arthur Morgan School)
Time had been moving at great speeds since we’d started the trip. When we arrived at The Arthur Morgan School, however, time seemed to finally slow for us. AMS is a specialized school for young teens, where the students participate in the work that runs the school and farm (http://www.arthurmorganschool.org). We had arranged to come as a part of the WWOOF program, ready to work in exchange for food and shelter, while the students were away on field trips. Even after spending the mornings and afternoons working in the gardens, we had time to do all the things we’d been wanting to do since the start of the trip. For me, just being off the road and getting my hands into soil again was relaxing.
What Dave and I didn’t realize when we arrived at the school was that they held their own monthly contra dance. We were lucky, and the dance fell on the weekend that we would be there. As we were ending our field work on Friday afternoon, we discussed how incredible it was that we wouldn’t have to drive to the dance that night. “There’s no way we’re going to be late to this one,” Dave proclaimed as he hammered in the final nail into the side of the greenhouse.
That night, instead of getting out maps, directions, phone numbers, and car keys we just reached for the flashlight. “This is the way contra dances should be,” I said to Dave as we trekked through the wooded path connecting our cabin to the main campus. “They should be in fire-lit shacks in the middle of the woods.”
“If they were,” answered Dave, “there wouldn’t be much for attendance.” The dance hall indeed had only about a dozen people in it as the first dance started, and in the corner a woman tended the wood stove to warm the hall.
Since most of the early attendees were families with small children, the caller did a few simple dances. It was fun watching the toddlers clapping their hands to the music and tugging at the sleeves of their parents when it wasn’t their turn to sashe down the hall or peel the banana. The second dance had a move where couples had to make an arch to let the rest of the set through. Parents had to bend into odd contortions to accomodate tiny children. One couple held their daughter above their heads, making her the pinnacle of their arch. This is a true community dance, I thought.
The caller was from Asheville, and did a great job catering to the families present. The band, who called themselves “Band-X,” featured two guitars, two fiddles, a banjo, and a mountain dulcimer. A partner of Dave’s whispered to him during a walkthrough that the mountain dulcimer player was the best in the country. She told him that normally, a dulcimer player plays chords, but this guy was on melody. Sometimes, halfway through a dance he would reach behind him to grab a different dulcimer, toss his current one aside, and continue playing at the same incredible speed, exclaiming, “they changed keys on me!”
Eventually more people from the community arrived and we did some contras. Almost all of the dancers, it seemed, were from nearby and many of them were farmers. Several folks remarked, “Oh! So you’re the contra dancing WWOOFers!” They all had stories to tell about The Arthur Morgan School.
The most memorable dance of the evening was a five person “square,” with no partner needed. One of the five was designated Jack or Jill. The group did a left hand star and after a few beats of music, Jack/Jill walked around the group to the right and chose someone to swing with. With a lopsided long lines and a do-si-do, a new Jack or Jill was chosen. The new leader lifted their arm after a circle, pulling two people into the center, and magically, a basket swing formation appeared.
One woman we met that night, originally from Germany, said that she had traveled all around North Carolina before deciding that this area was the best place to live. She was very excited about contra dancing, refusing to ever sit out, and tried to convince others to do the same. I felt bad when I had to let her down towards the end of the night. I dropped my Nalgene full of water on my toe and had to sit out the last two dances. One that I missed had a figure new to me and Dave, called the dixie twirl, which was basically a fancy way of turning around a line of four.
The next day, Dave and I decided to go to the yearly open house at The Penland School of Craft. The school, set amidst the Appalachians, had a beautiful campus decorated with students’ artwork. Each building had a different demonstration in it: glassblowing, textile dying, ironwork, etc., and a chance for you to create something of your own. We saw at least four contra dancers from the night before, each asking me if my toe was better.
-Celo, NC
