Dance Across America
I'll photograph traditional dance and its modern variants in communities throughout North America. Cape Breton to LA, Portland to Lafayette, a trip through a dance party of music and dance traditions that are centuries old.
Dance is the quickest route to joy, and is the glue that holds a community together. My project will be a cross-country tour of the joy and celebration of community-based folk dance. I'll document New Hampshire's contra dancing, a continuous 200 year old tradition. Then southern square dances, modified by Appalachian Scots-Irish from the old quadrilles, and which have lately become trendy raucous affairs in the Pacific Northwest. In Boston I'll photograph Irish set dancing. Then two-step and waltz in Cajun country, Swedish dance night in northeast Iowa, and Sephardic Jews dancing for hours at a wedding to modern Ladino music. I'll visit Cape Breton to see its renowned step dancing. I'll shoot Duranguense, the latest incarnation of a traditional form reborn as a hot dance craze in the Mexican-American community. I will get input from my community of blog readers, fellow dancers, and community organizations (Northwest Folklife and Centrum are two key Northwest organizations that I'll lean on) for other dance traditions to include in the project.
I have been a long time documentarian of the contra dance scene, both in still and video, and this project expands on that work. I want to seek the common elements of social and community dance across cultures. I will photograph dances and dance venues in communities across North America, and interview the musicians, organizers and dancers so they can share the meaning that dance and music bring to their lives.
14 Comments
thanks, appreciate it.
I'll be curious to see your pictures when project is completed!!!
you can have a look at my project too, far away in Tibet!
good luck
Come to Los Angeles and I'll show ya around Doug.
A well detailed project...my vote is in.
Mind hopping over and putting a vote in for Children's Literacy?
Thanks!
Ray Schiel
i love to dance and i love you idea! i voted for you. perhaps you can read my proposal and return the favor.
I love this idea; especially contra dance. Have you been to fiddling frog? Best of luck - you have my "PIC" - please check out my dream of furthering peaceful coexistence between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East. Thanks!!
I'm in!
This is a rad idea! I pic'd you! mine is all about exposing a fatal conflict in the Congo. Go look at it and please return the PIC if you wish!
Got my vote! I see it as an excellent project to grow the appreciation for our real lives and not some projections superimposed on us to make money. Go for it!
Nice. I love to see a good project that's not a downer.
Check mine out. Have you ever seen people dance at a come-as-your-favorite-toy party? awesome.
Good ideas like yours that are not in the Top 100 are nearly impossible to find. This is unfair as many great ideas are hidden. Those of us in the “Sub-100” should work together to promote the best projects of the Sub-100 so that they can be in the Top 100 and be seen. Please vote for best Sub-100s!
Ya got my vote too Doug -- go get 'em!
A lot of dance ideas it seems. Voted for yours, tho. Feel free to vote for my project on human rights abuses, land seizures, political upheaval and the overall struggles of daily life in Zimbabwe.
John from DDQ. I voted for you! Hope you'll support my idea on sustainable agriculture as well.
voted.