All the Way Around

Driving across Tennessee, we listened to Paul Simon’s “Graceland.” At last in Memphis, we joined the poor boys, pilgrims, and families at 3734 Elvis Presley Blvd. The Graceland gift shop was as far as we got, but we took some nice pictures of the Lisa Marie, the airplane Lisa was named after.

Minutes later, we crossed the Mississippi river, the threshold to The West. It flowed underneath us, big and beautifully brown, leaving a lasting impression as we drove over the flat Arkansas terrain to North Little Rock.

The avenues in the part of town the dance was held were lettered. “Look, D Ave,” Lisa said to me as we crossed the 4th one. I refused to call the street anything other than DAVE.

The dance was in a gym at the back of a Presbyterian church, and it started at 7:30 sharp. Bright fluorescents illuminated the hall as the sun set on our new energy efficient American evening.

We walked inside in the middle of a dance. I asked a woman by the door to be my partner and learned she would be our host for the night, Donna. In the 70s, she and her husband, David, started the dance along with a clogging class series. They were an interesting couple who had moved to Arkansas from Wisconsin, and the dance they had developed was unique.

With a final twirl, Donna and I finished our dance together, and I lined up with a new partner. When I looked up, I saw that Donna was now on stage playing guitar, and the caller was different. Throughout the night, 4 callers took the stage, and several guest musicians switched in and out of the house band.

My next partner was a bit younger than I was. I asked her where she was from, expecting the answer to be at least somewhere in the region. “Philly, actually,” she responded. She and a group of other young people came to the dance from the nearby “heifer project,” a farming program started in Arkansas to grow local foods and fight world hunger. Volunteers join the Heifer Project from all over the country, and many of them attend the Little Rock dances, she told me.

As I danced in my line, I noticed Lisa dancing in the other, leading a girl and wearing a neck tie. We saw a jar by the door when we walked in labeled “gender changers” filled with neckties and pink ribbons. Lisa used hers more than once, but I never got to try one. I didn’t notice any men with pink ribbons, but there were several women that used the ties.

After a few more dances, a woman called out, “we have a birthday in our midst.” Shortly thereafter, another woman arrived from the back room with a carrot cake. Next to me, a man yelled, “It’s my birthday too!” That was followed by two other identical shouts. No less than four people claimed to have been born on March 16th, which was impressive considering that there were only about 60 people in the room.

Later in the break, a guest Swedish style fiddler from Massachusetts was coaxed into playing some couples dances. She played a hambo which Lisa immediately grabbed me for. Not many of the Little Rock dancers knew the dance, but Lisa and I saw many people getting crash courses as we circled the room. Near the end of the evening, she played a schottische and a polka. The polka was danced differently than I’m used to seeing. The dancers only moved in one direction rather than turning back, and performed double steps around one another rather than the hop and twirl steps done in the northeast.

At the end of the night, our host David called an interesting circle dance. It began with couple facing couple around the circle. In a star, we balanced in and out twice, then turned the star three quarters and finished the musical phrase with a STOMP, STOMP. The music went great with this. The dance progressed with do-si-dos and promenades. However, after running through this several times, David jumped into the circle and led it around the room, snaking in and out of other dancers. We looped under arched arms (one of them Lisa’s) and around tight corners until everyone was in a circle again. The music continued at a fast tempo. “You,” David pointed to someone across the room. She began to clog into the center of the circle, did a few clogging moves, then backed out to the edge. “You,” the caller pointed to someone else. He clogged his way into the center. Everyone around the circle clapped as David pointed to various dancers around the room, inviting them to clog. His wife, Donna, made her way into the center once among the others. He ended the dance having everyone go into the center with a whoop and a holler.

After this was the final waltz. Lisa and I prepared to leave the dance when David and Donna asked us to join them and the rest of the group for pizza at a local restaurant down the street. As Lisa and I navigated the avenues to get there, I smiled with the realization that the pizza place was on DAVE.

Eating with the other dancers, Lisa and I learned that one of the purposes of the Little Rock dance was to serve as a training ground for local callers and musicians. That was why so many were present that night. Most weeks are run this way, we were assured. I was very impressed by the dancing community; they all seemed to know one another. Socializing with old neighbors and partners, and swapping stories about the dancing we had done, I became convinced that every dance needs a late night eatery nearby.

-Greenbrier, AR