Special Events and Projects

In addition to our dance series and camps, BACDS and its performance teams have a number of special events. These range from formal and costume balls to sunrise dances to appearances in a neighborhood near you.

National Dance Week / Playford Ball / May Day / Morris Season / Halloween Ball / Fall Ball / No Snow Ball / New Years' Eve English Dance / Swinging On The Gate 25th Anniversary Bash Ceilidh Workshops / Couple-Dance Party /

National Dance Week

National Dance Week is an annual nationwide celebration of dance in all its forms. It lasts for 10 days at the end of April (in 2008, it runs from Friday, April 25 through Sunday, May 4). All events listed in the National Dance Week Event Guide are free to the public.

BACDS has participated in the Bay Area National Dance Week since 2007. In 2008, we are sponsoring the following events:

• A Jane Austen Dance Experience Saturday, April 26, 2008, from 12:30 to 4:30 pm at Grace North Church, 2138 Cedar Street (near Oxford), Berkeley. Learn the dances that Jane Austen loved, interspersed with readings from her letters and works, and enjoy a pot-luck English Tea.
• Introduction To Contra Dance Saturday, April 26, 2008, 6:30 pm at First United Methodist Church, Hamilton Avenue at Webster Street, Palo Alto. Attend the introductory dance and get free admission to the regular Palo Alto Contra Dance following.
• Introduction To Contra Dance Wednesday, April 30, 2008, 6:30 pm at Grace North Church, 2138 Cedar Street (near Oxford), Berkeley. Attend the introductory dance and get free admission to the regular Berkeley Contra Dance following.
• Celebrate May Morning This year, our regular May Day Morris performances fall during National Dance Week. Get up at 5 in the morning and watch us dance the sun up at four locations around the Bay Area.
• Introduction To English Country Dance Friday, May 2, 2008, 6:30 pm at Palo Alto Masonic Temple, 461 Florence (near University), Palo Alto. Attend the introductory dance and get free admission to the regular Palo Alto English Dance following.
• Introduction To Contra Dance Saturday, May 3, 2008, 6:15 pm at St Paul's Church, 43rd Avenue at Judah Street, Palo Alto. Attend the introductory dance and get free admission to the regular San Francisco Contra Dance following.

To learn more about what our participatory dances are like, follow this link

Playford Ball

BACDS's Playford Ball, started in 1980 by Brad Foster, is one of BACDS's earliest and most popular activities. While some communities have Playford Balls that limit themselves exclusively to dances that were published in John Playford and his descendents between 1650 and the late 1700s, ours covers dances written from 1650 to today. Currently located at Oakland's Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Ascension, the Playford Ball takes place during the end of March or beginning of April (depending largely on when Greek Orthodox Easter occurs during the given year).

The Playford Ball, as well as the rehearsal dance the evening beforehand (usually at the San Mateo Masonic Temple) and additional practice dances in the east bay and peninsula, are organized by a large committee that devotes a great deal of effort to making the Ball a splendid event. As a result, Ball attendees are treated to marvelous decorations, excellent food, and exquisite music. Very little dance instruction is required at the Ball, in large part because the Ball program and dance directions are distributed to west coast callers the November prior to the Ball.

Formal or festive attire is encouraged among ball attendees, with many attendees choosing to wear period costume (although hoops and panniers are discouraged due to space considerations) or outfits relating to the year's theme. Attendance has been around 200 for the past several years; sizable contingents from southern California and the Pacific northwest, as well as attendees from New York, Boston, and Alaska, have been in regular attendance.

May Day

From time immemorial (which is to say, since the Oxford University Morris Men first joined an existing college-sponsored May Day dawn festivity during the 1920s), morris dancers have danced up the sun on the first of May. Some say they do it because it wouldn't come up otherwise.

BACDS teams have been dancing the sun up in Berkeley since 1978, Palo Alto since 1985, Santa Cruz since 1998, and San Francisco since the late 1990s. In each of these locations, the event has become a local tradition attracting several hundred non-dancing attendees.

Morris Season

The different types of English display dance have their own distinctive seasons in their native habitat. Cotswold morris teams, with their sticks, hankies, and high leaps, are most visible between late April and late June. Northwest morris, featuring large groups, clogs, and processional dances, are traditionally found in autumn. Wintertime traditions include the precision of longsword and rapper teams; rag coats, sticks, and screaming of border teams, and Molly dancing's drag outfits and parodies of English country dance. While many BACDS teams perform these transplanted traditions year-round, performances tend to be more prevalent during the traditional seasons.

Most BACDS teams gather annually at the Stanford Spring Fair (which used to be, officially, the "Bridge Fair", and people still call it that, but you won't find it through google unless you use "Spring Fair") during Mother's Day weekend. There have also been "morris days" at the northern Renaissance Pleasure Faire in late summer and Dickens Fair in mid-December.

Halloween Ball

Held on the last Saturday in October, the Halloween contra is a special edition of the Palo Alto contradance, with calling by Eric Black and Special Ghosts. Door and costume prizes add to the festivity of the event; costumes display the amazing creativity of the dance community. In 2007, the dance will be held on October 27 at the San Mateo Masonic Lodge, 100 N Ellis Street, San Mateo (at Tilton), with music by the Hillbillies From Mars.

Fall Ball

Started in 1995 as a less-formal complement to the Playford Ball, the Fall Ball is an English country dance ball with a workshop during the afternoon of the event. The program has usually had a theme, featuring (for example) a preponderance of dances by Pat Shaw, Gary Roodman, or bay area choreographers, or showing the influence of Playford in the New World.

Callers have included David Newitt, Jenny Beer, Lise Dyckman, Jody McGeen, Bruce Hamilton, Robin Hayden, and (in 2006) Gary Roodman. The event usually (but not always) occurs on the third Saturday in November.

No-Snow Ball

Some east coast communities have Snow Balls, festive contra balls and cotillions that take place in the midst of snowy winter. The No-Snow Ball, so-named because of the dearth of the white powder in coastal northern California, is a holiday contradance party (modeled after the Concord, MA, Christmas Cotillion) that takes place on the first Saturday evening in December,at Oakland's Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Ascension, 4700 Lincoln Avenue (next to the Mormon Temple, off Highway 13). Dances are called by Santa Claus and one of his assistants, with music provided by several of Santa's favorite helpers. Festive dress is encouraged for the event, which in 2007 runs 7:30-11:30 pm, with delicious potluck fare awaiting the dancers at break. There's a newcomer's welcome at 7:00 pm. December 1, 2007. Callers: Santa Claus and Karen Fa-la-lantana. Music by Winter FoG (Kathrine Gardner, Charlie Hancock, Craig Johnson, Jim Oakden) & Cathie Whitesides.

DIRECTIONS

From 580 Freeway in Oakland, take Fruitvale Ave exit Northbound. Turn right onto MacArthur, left onto Lincoln. Cathedral is on the right about 1 mile up Lincoln.

From 13 Freeway in Oakland, take Joaquin Miller / Lincoln Ave exit, take Lincoln down the hill. Cathedral is on the left just past the Mormon Temple.

The Cathedral has a large parking lot.

Yahoo Map Link

New Years' Eve English Dance

This all started with the turn of the Millenium. December 31, 1999 was a fifth Friday, and a regularly-scheduled Palo Alto English dance. So, we had a New Years' Eve dance to welcome in the year 2000.

We liked it so much that we did it again, and again and we're still doing it in 2006! This is a low-key holiday party. Lots of dancing, great music, potluck food, and good friends. Come join us at the Palo Alto Masonic for our New Year's Eve dance.

Swinging On The Gate

Swinging On The Gate, BACDS's first recording, features tracks by fourteen of the bay area's finest dance bands. Made with the generous assistance of the Country Dance and Song Society's May Gadd/Phil Merrill Endowment Fund, many of the tracks are typical of what you would hear at bay area contra dances, with a few English country tunes mixed in. Performers on the CD include the Hillbillies From Mars, Shira Kammen & Jim Oakden, The Contrabandits, Stump Tail Dog, and Tipsy House.

The CD is available for fifteen dollars from many of the musicians on the recording, as well as at the San Francisco contra.

25th Anniversary Bash

On May 20, 2007, BACDS celebrated 25 years with a day of music, contra dance, English dance, morris dance, history, and general fun. BACDS founder Brad Foster, Bruce Hamilton, the Hillbillies from Mars, Flashpoint, and many, many more callers and musicians were there for our pleasure, At the Nature Friends Center in the Oakland Hills, with two floors of dancing, a history room, and more. Lots of info at the event website

Ceilidh Workshops

BACDS has the occasional English ceilidh/barn dance workshop. In 2003, we were pleased to play host to legendary ceilidh caller Pete Grassby and members of the Aardvark Ceilidh Band for a full day of workshops and dance.

In 2004, we played host to English traditional dance expert Hugh Rippon and English ceilidh band Four in a Bar. For more information about Hugh's workshops and dances, please visit the event series web page.

Couple Dance Party

In October 2005, BACDS took advantage of the presence of legendary musicians Mary Lea and Jacqueline Schwab to have a special couple dance party at St. Clement's Church in Berkeley on Tuesday, October 11. (Mary, Jacqueline, and Earl Gaddis also played at the Berkeley Wednesday English dance on the 12th, and at Fall Dance Weekend October 14-16.) It was a lovely evening of waltzes, tango waltzes, polkas, schottisches, and a couple of sequence dances (like "Gypsy Wine", the title track from one of Mary's couple-dance recordings) and mixers or country dances, led by Alan Winston and Lise Dyckman.

More info at the web page.