I'm posting here a note I recently received from two caller friends that may be of interest to folks on this list. The senders' e-mails are contained near the end of the note so contact them directly off-list if you're interested in participating.
If you're a new caller and haven't yet discovered the Ted Sannella legacy, I'd recommend that you immediately contact Country Dance and Song Society ([email protected]) and purchase copies of Ted's two books, "Balance and Swing" and "Swing the Next." They are excellent collections of dances (mostly by Ted, but also including some traditional material and compositions by others as well) AND Ted's notes on how to teach each dance are wonderful guides into the thinking of a master caller.
CDSS is in the process of publishing Ted's manuscript on calling squares; the hope is to include a CD of Ted calling.
I've programmed entire evenings of nothing but Ted Sannella compositions and have been continually amazed by his creativity-- contras, squares, triplets, circle dances, mixers, simple dances for beginners to quite complex... he did it all!
David Millstone
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We are all looking forward to wonderful dance and music events in 2005. Amongst other things 2005 will mark the tenth anniversary of Ted Sannella's death. Ted passed away on 18 November 1995. Ted was our common mentor and inspiration. His dance legacy is alive and we want to help keep it alive for future generations.
We were just together at a Christmas dance camp where we starting talking about Ted. We would like to do something special to remember Ted this year, and hope you can join us in that.
We would like you to join us in declaring the "week" of 11-20 November 2005 the Ted Sannella memorial dance week. What might we do to commemorate Ted? One or more of Ted's dances could be programmed during one of your community's contra dances. Perhaps you'd like to do an evening of Ted's dances. Maybe fellow callers and musicians could tell an anecdote or share photos to bring back memories. You might want to put on a workshop and devote it to Ted's dances and philosophy. There are many possibilities.
Whatever you would like to do that would work well for your local dance community would be great. The important thing is that the commemoration happen during November 11-20. We'd like to have dancers, callers, musicians and organizers from all over thinking of Ted and his contributions to the dancing we love and to our common dance heritage.
If you're interested in participating in this memorial dance event, please contact Mary Devlin ([email protected]) and/or Philippe Callens ([email protected]). Let us know what you're thinking of doing. If it's OK with you, we can share plans among the participants.
Mary Devlin (Portland, Oregon)
Philippe Callens (Antwerp, Belgium)
