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SNEAP Year 4 Presentation: New England Square Dance Calling

Date2002 June 23

Mediumreformatted digital file from VHS tape

DimensionsDuration: 7 Minutes, 52 Seconds

ClassificationsGraphics

Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections

DescriptionVHS tape recording of the 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 caller Bob Livingston. The presentation took place in Bernardston, Massachusetts on June 23, 2002.

Object number2015.196.912a-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.

Biographical Note: Bob Livingston is a public square dance caller who uses the “Eastern Singing Style” of calling, a distinctive New England form with dances called in phrase to American fiddle tunes. He learned this calling tradition over fifteen years by attending dances, listening to established callers such as Doug Wilkins, and occasionally stepping in to call. Only when in his 40's did Bob begin to call a complete four-hour dance himself. Public or community square dances, which are different from contra dances, are open to anyone to attend so all ages can participate. The caller serves an important role here, because he or she has to guide both novices and experienced dancers through the steps, and sometimes has to “untangle” formations. Singing-calling depends a lot on the rhythms and timing of the live music too, and the caller has to know the movements of the dances. Bob can call French Canadian quadrilles that are popular in eastern CT and RI, as well as Virginia Reel and circle formations. He always calls to a live band, and tailors his calling to the type of dance as well as the level of the dancers.

Bob has appeared regularly at the monthly Killingly Grange community dance and from 1987 to the 2020s, Bob Livingston called the community dances in Bernardston, Massachusetts to music by the Falltown String Band. He worked with Mansfield Middle School string musicians to teach students and parents, and call their Country Dance Nights. He conducted two camp residencies in Brooklyn CT and Whately, MA, and has called at YMCA Camp Hazen, Chester CT. Other experiences include being caller, leader and teacher for a 4-H square dance club formed to conclude a season of meetings by demonstrating at the Durham, CT Fair; church social events; home school family groups; weddings; library programs; town celebrations such as Old Home Days in Halifax VT and barn dances in two new Amish barns built in Franklin CT (the Blue Slope Museum) and Woodstock CT. Bob is a regular caller for the Cornwall CT community dances organized by fiddler Rachel Gall from the Year 9 (2006-2007) apprenticeship in northwestern CT folk music.

Bob participated in the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program in Year 4 (2001-2002) as a mentor caller teaching apprentices Edward Phelps, Ruth Fairman, and William Wiles the New England community square dance calling tradition, and was an experienced apprentice himself in Year 5 (2002-2003) learning French-Canadian quadrille calling with teaching artists George Menard and musician Conrad Depot.

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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