Folk Dancing Famous Feedback
As Well As Encouragement for Providence Church in Pensacola, FL
There is a saying, “talking about music is like dancing about architecture.” Well, what is it in reverse? Whatever it is, that’s the subject of this post. Over the next few weeks, I have the opportunity to go and call some folk dances1 at several sister churches in our region. The first of those is for my friend, Dr. Uri Brito of Providence Church in Pensacola, Florida. As they have their church’s twentieth anniversary, I wrote a little exhortation for him to pass along to their congregation. I thought it might just be helpful to others as well.
Folk Dancing Exhortation:
Many of us did not grow up “folk dancing.” For that reason, it may seem a bit intimidating or even a bit odd. Please allow me a few comments to encourage you to come ready to have a joyous and wholesome time this weekend.
First, everything we will do in our time together, I will instruct and show you how to do before asking you to do it. Second, all of the dancing we will do is communal, or group-oriented. These kinds of dances are not romantic pairs of couples. Instead, they are group dances often comprised of family members, neighbors, fellow church members, etc. Third, it requires no experience to have fun. Whether you accidentally go right when you should go left, I guarantee you will have a great time of fellowship and so will those around you.
Lastly, the real joy of folk dancing is in the beauty of how it pictures several things. Done well, it pictures or visually paints the music with the movements of each folk dance. It also pictures “brethren dwelling together in unity.”2 For these reasons and more, I am confident that you will have a lovely time together. I look forward to teaching and calling dances for you!
“One of the Top Five Evenings”
Through the parents of some former children’s choir members in the area, I was first asked to call a “Father/Daughter” dance for one of our local Church of Christ congregations in early 2018. When I arrived there on that cold winter Saturday evening, I was surprised to see several of the guys from the Duck Commander brand and the Duck Dynasty television series. The room was packed, but it was not hard to spot those iconic beards. Everyone was finishing dinner and beginning to clear the space for me to teach and call some folk dances.
They introduced me and handed me a microphone. As I looked across the room, I thought I needed to reassure all of these dads that this would not be a “Disney Princess Glitter Fest” they may have thought they were dutifully walking into. To the best of my recollection, I started by saying,
“Some of you have an idea in your head of what we are about to do. Let me reassure you of two things: First, this will be a different type of dancing than you think, and second, you will enjoy it.”
With that, I formed them up in lines for reels, circle waltzes, and more for about forty-five minutes of dancing together. Then, as we finished and I was gathering my things, one of these dads walked up to me. It was Jase Robertson, and he shook my hand and said, “Thank you.”
Fast-forward about six months later to the Dallas/Fort Worth airport terminal, where I was waiting to catch my last leg of a return flight back to Monroe, Louisiana. As is often the case, I saw a familiar face standing close to me, waiting to board. It was Missy Robertson, the wife of Jase Robertson. She is a gifted singer, and I had known her from when we both were in the local symphony chorus together a few years previous. We made some small talk, and I mentioned how fun it was to see Jase and her daughter folk dancing earlier that year. She said, “Jarrod, he still talks about it. He says it was one of the top five evenings.” I smiled and thanked her for telling me that. A little while later, we finished up our conversation and were soon boarding the flight and off on our separate ways.
I believe that Jase Robertson came away from that Father/Daughter Evening of folk dancing the way most people do after experiencing it for the first time—surprised at just how much fun was possible by group dancing. I know that was my experience years ago. So, give it a try and say “yes” when someone asks you to attend one of these types of dances.
If you want to read more on folk dancing, see these articles:
Dancing With, Not At One Another: An Explanation of Folk Dancing’s Joy and Blessings
Like a Hand in a Glove: Fitting Folk Dance & Song Together in Complimentary Ways
When I speak of folk dancing, I’m referring to social dance that is group-oriented rather than individual or only pair-oriented. In other words, movement to music that takes more than one pair of dancers to perform correctly. Folk dancing can refer to a particular kind of dancing native to a country, region, or culture. But I’m talking about when dancers form couples, and those couples form lines, sets, squares, or other types of group formations according to the type of dance being attempted.
Psalm 133:1 (NKJV)