Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections, 2015.196.917c, Connecticut Historical S…

SNEAP Year 5 Presentation: Quadrille Calling

PerformerPerformed by Conrad Depot Canadian, 1921 - 2008

Date2003 April 27

Mediumreformatted digital file from audio cassette

DimensionsDuration (side 1): 46 Minutes, 53 Seconds
Duration (side 2): 46 Minutes, 57 Seconds
Duration (total runtime): 1 Hour, 33 Minutes, 59 Seconds

ClassificationsInformation Artifacts

Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections

DescriptionAudio cassette tape recording of a required public presentation of the Year 5 Southern New England Apprenticeship Program team in quadrille calling with teaching artist George Menard and apprentice Bob Livingston. George Menard and Bob Livingston are the callers. Conrad Depot and his band accompany during this performance. The performance took place at the Blackstone River Theatre in Cumberland, Rhode Island on April 27, 2003.

Object number2015.196.917a-d

CopyrightIn Copyright

NotesSubject Note: The French-Canadian tradition of quadrilles, social dances featuring several sets of four couples each, remains popular in eastern Connecticut and Rhode Island. Like square dances, quadrilles depend on a caller to announce the dance figures, while musicians play traditional dance tunes. George Menard called quadrilles in New England throughout his adult life, and was the regular caller at the monthly Cumberland, Rhode Island dances. He and Bob Livingston, an experienced community square dance caller, shared their repertoires and expertise so that Bob could step in to call quadrilles as George began a long-awaited retirement in the early 2000s. Their goal was to ensure the continuation of this very traditional form of social gathering - capable callers enable quadrilles to be an active part of community life rather than becoming only a performance event for festivals. Octogenarian fiddler Conrad Depot joined the Year 5 apprenticeship sessions to provide the musical accompaniment as Bob learned the calls for quadrille dances. For the team’s public presentation, Bob Livingston called a quadrille along with George Menard and fiddler Conrad Depot at the Blackstone River Theatre in Cumberland, Rhode Island; Bob became a regular caller for the dances there.

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.

Subject Terms