All the Way Around

Though Lisa and I have done some long drives since reaching the Southwest, we resolutely decided to go the extra distance between Santa Fe and Phoenix to see the Grand Canyon. As we pulled past the Grand Canyon IMax theater (a must see), snow began to fall. Looking out over the canyon’s southern rim into sporadic swirls of snowflakes, we agreed that the view was worth the trip.

A few hours south took us into the city of Phoenix. It was hot, dry, about 6000 feet lower in elevation, and had probably not seen snow all year.

Our host generously offered to drive us to the Wednesday night Phoenix dance, a lucky thing we realized when we saw what we would have had to navigate through. The main street was covered in orange cones marking off the construction area for a new light rail system to alleviate traffic. We learned that the project has been going on for years.

We arrived at the hall in the middle of a dance. I joined in with our host at the bottom of the only set.

The dance was held at the Irish Cultural Center, which contained a small space with shirts, flags, and pictures hung up around the room, all tokens of Irish culture. A big mural of an Irish castle filled the back wall. We were told that the Saturday dances are held in a much larger space, and that folks travel to it from contra dance groups all around the state. Commonly, 100 people attend. That evening’s dance was a much more local crowd. At its peak, there were about 30-40 dancers, making up two lines.

The Phoenix Friends of Old Time Music Open Band played the music. There were five of them that night, many of whom played more than one instrument. One of my favorite tunes of the night featured the keyboard player on flute and one of the fiddlers beating a drum.

Laila Lewis, the caller, came up from Tuscon. During the break, she told me that in her area, there were many callers and not enough dances to feature them all. Relatively new to calling, she and a friend generally split a night’s calling between them. In order to have a full evening for herself, she explained that she had to travel to dances in other areas.

For that first dance, as our host and I danced up and down the set, I noticed several beginners as well as experienced dancers. Almost everyone was above the age of 35, but a few kids were there, too, no older than 10.

“Go easy on the flirting,” my host told me as I looked into her eyes. “Some of the dancers here can be uncomfortable with it.” As we danced, she told me about some of the dances she had been to, and the different degrees of flirting she had experienced at each one. “It would be interesting to know which dances have the most flirting, and which the least,” she continued.

Snacks were plentiful on a table in the back. Tortilla chips, Lisa and I have discovered, are everywhere you go from Texas to the west coast, showing up at every meal as well as the times in between. The snack table at the dance was no exception. Guacamole was next to the cookies.

Toward the end of the night, I noticed two really good dancers doing some interesting twirls. I approached them when the dance was over and asked how long they had been dancing for. They told me that they had been at it for several years. “Did you dance to Nils Fredland,” I asked them.

“We trained him,” the man explained.

“But then we let him get away,” added the woman.

Nils, a nationally known caller, now lives in New Hampshire, but he got his start calling in Phoenix.

The next night, Lisa and I got together with an old flame of my dad’s who used to folk dance with him. After over 30 years, they found each other once more at a folk dance festival in Pennsylvania. She and her husband took us to an international folk session in a boat house in central Phoenix. I was excited to learn some new dances, and tried to join in wherever I could. Lisa did the same. The dancers were very inviting and did their best teaching two contra dancers their foreign steps.

I always marvel at international folk dancers. They have memorized so many dances, excitedly filling the floor with each new recorded tune. No matter what country a dance is from, most international dancers pick it up right away. One woman from Macedonia danced some circle dances with her baby slung over her shoulder. The baby gently rocked as its mother energetically stepped to the beat.

Dancing circles with Lisa in one hand and my dad’s dancing partner in the other, I felt aware of the inter-generational aspect of dancing. Dances are passed down, like all other aspects of culture, and the movements stay with us from year to year, decade to decade.

-Phoenix, AZ

This entry was posted on Friday, March 30th, 2007 at 9:49 am and is filed under 14 Arizona. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.