SNEAP Year 4 Presentation: New England Square Dance Calling
PerformerPerformed by
William Wiles
PerformerPerformed by
Edward Phelps
PerformerPerformed by
Ruth Fairman
Date2002 May 25
Mediumreformatted digital file from VHS tape
DimensionsDuration: 5 Minutes, 25 Seconds
ClassificationsGraphics
Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections
DescriptionVHS tape recording of a required public presentation of the Year 4 Southern New England Apprenticeship Program team in New England square dance calling with teaching artist Bob Livingston and apprentices Edward Phelps, William Wiles, and Ruth Fairman. In this video the Falltown String Band performs with callers Ed Phelps, Bill Wiles, and Ruth Fairman. The presentation took place in Bernardston, Massachusetts on May 25, 2002.
Object number2015.196.911a-b
CopyrightIn Copyright
NotesSubject Note: The Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program Year 4 (2001-2002) team in New England community square dance calling included mentor caller Bob Livingston teaching apprentices Edward Phelps, Ruth Fairman, and William Wiles. From 1987 to the 2020s, Bob Livingston called the community dances in Bernardston, Massachusetts, with music provided by the apprentices who played regularly for the dances with the Falltown String Band. The purpose of the Year 4 apprenticeship was to teach singing-calls, since this particular rare style needs new practitioners. At the end of their training, the apprentices joined in calling a complete square dance, and at a later event, apprentice Bill Wiles was able to call an entire dance to fill in for an ailing caller in Massachusetts.Subject Note: The Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program is a CCHAP initiative since 1997 that fosters the sharing of community-based traditional (folk) artistic skills through the apprenticeship learning model of regular, intensive, one-on-one teaching by a skilled mentor artist to a student/apprentice. The program pairs master artists from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, or Connecticut with apprentices from one of the other states, as a way to knit together members of the same community or group across state lines. Teaching and learning traditional arts help to sustain cultural expressions that are central to a community, while also strengthening festivals, arts activities, and events when master/apprentice artists perform or demonstrate results of their cooperative learning to public audiences. The Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program at the Connecticut Historical Society manages the program in collaboration with the Folk Arts Program at the Massachusetts Cultural Council and independent folklorist Winifred Lambrecht who has a deep knowledge of the folk arts landscape of Rhode Island. Primary funding for the program comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, with support also from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Institute for Community Research, and the Connecticut Historical Society.
Additional materials exist in the CCHAP archive for these artists and these activities.
Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.
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