The portal contains a vast range of resources by and for the dance, music, and song community. From expert tips from fellow organizers and callers, to databases of dances and songs, find what you need to help engage with the traditions you love!
Resources added before 2022 do not all have explicit permission from the authors. If your resource is in the portal and you’d like it removed, please email us.
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Use the search box and filters below to find resources.
Tip: Selecting multiple checkboxes will give you more specific results. For example, to see specific resources for contra dance callers, select both Callers and Contra Dance.
286 Results
Attracting Younger Dancers: Creating and maintaining a multigenerational dance
How can we find youth, incorporate them, and keep them? Getting younger people to attend dances (and keep coming back) seems to be the holy grail. Notes from this 2014 session cover two major areas: promoting youth participation (dancers, callers, musicians, board members etc.), and how to have a successful multi-generation dance. Includes practical ideas and tips from people who have successfully achieved this, and we will discuss things that have been tried but did not work.
From Karina Wilson & Laura Gorrin at the 2014 Southwest Regional Organizers Conference
Categories: Organizers
Organizing a Family/Community Dance Series
Marian Rose offers tips on how to start up a regular community dance series.
From the CDSS News
Categories: Community/Family Dance, Organizers
To Market, To Market… Jiggity Jig
A dance organizer’s heart swells to see a sea of smiling dancers, just as an entrepreneur is gladdened when her business attracts happy customers. But how do we pull in those dancers and customers? Together, we’ll venture beyond the proverbial flyer table, discovering practical tactics for marketing our series, from the well-crafted press release to preaching to the converted.
From Chrissy Fowler & Lisa Sieverts at Puttin’ On The Dance 2011
Categories: Organizers
Marketing 101: Finding and keeping the crowd you want
Notes from a session on how marketing can help you find and keep the crowd you want. Focuses on the scope of marketing has beyond just advertising and that organizers seeking to attract more people to their dances need to ‘market’ rather than ‘advertise’ their dance. Including the role and importance of the organizational vision in marketing; the benefits of thinking about your dance series as a ‘product;’ the importance of understanding your audience and their perceptions of the product (dance series) you are offering; and the all-important ‘marketing mix’ (a set of tools used to help pursue the marketing objectives).
From Michael Barraclough at the 2014 SW Regional Organizers Conference
Categories: Organizers
A brief how-to on creating press releases to promote your event or series.
Categories: Organizers
Marketing Tips—Old School News Releases Still Work!
In this article, Lisa C. Brown & David N. Boyer describe recent success with using news releases and provides some best practices.
From the CDSS News
Categories: Organizers
Marketing your English Dance: Don’t Blame Jane!
This article by Lisa Brown from (president of Country Dancers of Rochester and past coordinator of the Central & Western NY region
of the Jane Austen Society of North America) outlines how ECD communities can partner with Jane Austen clubs (and fans) to bring in new dancers.
From the CDSS News
Categories: English Country Dance, Organizers
A Collection of Print Promotional Material
This resource contains posters, flyers, business cards and more from 57 different dance, music and song communities. It is meant as inspiration for organizers developing their own print material.
Categories: Organizers
Skill-Building for Dance Promotion: How to Create Good Instructional Dance Videos
Don Bell give some excellent tips on how to film dances
From the CDSS News
Categories: Organizers
How to Photograph a Contra Dance
Long time dance photographer Doug Plummer details some tips for photographing at a contra dance.
From the CDSS News
Categories: Organizers
Thoughts on how to handle a safety complaint/problem when it is raised to you as an organizer.
From Jeff Kaufman
Categories: Organizers
Handling Really Difficult People
The information in this supplement is a distillation of the actual recent experience of the [San Francisco] Bay Area Country Dance Society Board of Directors, including 1. How to cope with restraining orders, when and how to get legal advice, identifying inappropriate behavior, investigating inappropriate behavior, dealing with inappropriate behavior, handling appeals, summary and checklists.
From Jens M. Dill/CDSS West Coast Leadership Conference: 2006
Categories: Organizers
Proactive Management of “Problem Dancers” – Creating a Dance Environment Safe for All
This article by Will Loving explores a wide range of topics focused on creating a safe dance environment for all.
From the CDSS News
Categories: Organizers
In this article, Jeff Kaufman shares his thoughts on how to have conversations with individuals identified as having bad behavior.
From the CDSS News
Categories: Organizers
In this blog post, Jeff shares the signs that BIDA posts around the hall which reflect the values of their dance series.
From Jeff Kaufman
Categories: Organizers
Working with Crowded Dance Halls
In this piece, Brad Foster explores some solutions on how to handle dances where the crowd is too large for the space.
From the CDSS News
Categories: Callers
What IS a vision/mission? How do we craft and implement a unique mission statement for our dance series? Why is this a crucial step in the growth of each dance? Whether your dance already has a mission statement, or you’re just starting to think about this, or you’re somewhere in between, this all-conference session will offer practical tools and thought-provoking perspectives for addressing this pertinent topic. Together we will explore these vital questions, generating answers to inform and guide our participation throughout the SWROC weekend.
From SW Regional Organizers Conference 2014 by Annie Laskey, Linda Henry, & Michael Barraclough
Categories: Organizers
Session notes on how to make a welcoming dance community for everyone.
From Sophia Donforth & Julia Bennett
Categories: Organizers
How Community Culture Impacts Dancer Experience
Slides from an excellent presentation on how community culture impacts dancer experience.
From Emily Addison & Tara Bolker
Categories: Organizers
Revitalization: How Do You Make a Dance Come Back to Life?
In this article, Joyce Fortune writes about the steps that her community took to revitalize their flagging series.
From the CDSS News
Categories: Organizers
Vision Workshop Materials with Examples
David Millstone’s session handout on how to create a vision. Includes examples of mission statements from NEFFA and Belfast Flying Shoes.
Categories: Organizers
The How and Why of Creating a Vision
A concise explanation from Max Newman of the why and how of creating a vision.
From the CDSS News
Categories: Organizers
Tips and distilled wisdom from CDSS for how to craft a vision for your event, series, team, or group.
Categories: Organizers
The CDSS multigenerational dance video series, is our response to dancing at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Categories: Community/Family Dance, Educators, Families
American Folk Dancing with Evo Bluestein
This is a 10 minute video snapshot of an American Folk Dance Residency by Evo Bluestein. With a large repertoire of traditional dances and songs as his tools, Evo introduces a fun social and cultural experience and at the same time, teaches courtesy and important social rules of behavior. Evo introduces students to fiddle, accordion, Appalachian dulcimer and many other instruments. It is no small feat that he can demonstrate the steps, call the dance and play old time fiddle at the same time. The week, culminates in a rousing Friday night “barn dance.”
Categories: Educators
Square Dancing with 3rd Graders
This is a 17-minute documentary (2013) about a project in Berkeley that involves musician and caller Erik Hoffman. The work builds on folk dance instruction by 3rd grade teacher Susan Graubard Archuletta. Mention is made of the 4 C’s: courtesy, cooperation, concentration, and community. You’ll see shots of Zodiac, Texas Star, the Virginia Reel, and even a bit of Sellinger’s Round. Nicely edited mix of the adults talking to the camera along with plenty of shots of a very diverse group of kids dancing and having lots of fun.
From Crabtron
Categories: Educators
Country Dancing as a College Course
Brooke Friendly describes her experience leading an English and Scottish country dance college course, including getting the course approved, evaluating students, and more. Includes example course proposal and syllabus.
From the CDSS News
Categories: Educators, English Country Dance
Hilton Baxter describes his experience leading a college dance course including getting it approved, the goals of the course, and much more.
From the CDSS News
Categories: Educators
Wondering how to bring the next generation to dance and song? Read these collected reprints from the CDSS News recounting readers’ experiences, success stories and practical advice for teaching traditional country and ritual dance in school settings.
This resource is free for CDSS members and is available for purchase through the CDSS Online Store.
Categories: Educators
Lots of useful information on creating, programming, and organizing a family dance from contributors Dudley Laufman, Andy Davis, Bob Dalsemer, Marian Rose, and Joan Shimer. Includes an extensive resource list.
This resource is free for CDSS members and is available for purchase through the CDSS Online Store.
Categories: Community/Family Dance, Educators
This website provides research for music educators on unsung narratives in U.S. folk music, resources, and tools for decolonizing practices.
Categories: Educators
Dinah, Put Down Your Horn: Blackface Minstrel Songs Don’t Belong in Music Class
In this article, Dr Katya Erolaeva makes the case to remove racist songs from school music programs and discusses a number of songs with racist messaging.
From Medium
Categories: Educators
Marian Rose provides some fantastic calling tips as well as suggestions for dances to do when accommodating young children as part of your dancing community
From the CDSS News
Categories: Callers, Community/Family Dance, Educators
Crankies in the Music Classroom
This article outlines how Eleanor Lincoln learned about crankies and started using them in her elementary classroom. It also includes tips to support other teachers in doing so!
From the CDSS News
Categories: Educators
Shared Weight: Dance Musicians Discussion List
This mailing list welcomes dance musicians and those interested in dance music for any form of traditional social dance. This includes contra, English country, traditional squares (e.g., Appalachian, New England, Quebecois, Cape Breton, etc), community/family/barn, ceili, bal folk, and more. Dance musicians ask/answer questions, discuss issues that come up for them, and share helpful resources. This is a great way to talk to dance musicians from throughout North America and beyond. Join the discussion!
Categories: Community/Family Dance, Contra Dance, Early American Dance, English Country Dance, Musicians, Square Dance
A collection of more then 40,000 North American, British and Irish tunes with new ones being added every month.
From Andrew Kuntz & Valerio Pelliccioni
Categories: Musicians
A collection of tens of thousands of trad tunes, contributed collectively by a strong community of musicians. There are updates to the tunes on a daily basis.
From Jeremy Keith
Categories: Musicians
Mickie Zekley has scanned many of Cecil Sharp’s piano arrangements of country dance tunes, originally published in 1912, and made them available online in PDF format. These scores provide ideas for piano players about how to accompany many popular English country dance tunes. Note that the key signatures of some of the tunes differ from those most commonly used by contemporary musicians.
From Mendocino ECD
Categories: English Country Dance, Musicians
This website contains hundreds of tunes with MP3 audio clips, sheet music and ABC notation. The tunes come from several regions around the North Atlantic: Scandinavia, the British Isles, Quebec, Cape Breton, Métis (Saskatchewan & Manitoba), New England, Appalachia, and more. The website also includes some of the Vermont Fiddle Orchestra tunes which often have harmonies included.
From North Atlantic Tune list
Categories: Musicians
SPUDS are an open/all comers dance band. Their website contains a large number of tunes in abc format and standard notation, along with links to other tune repositories.
From SPUDS
Categories: Musicians
Jeremy Child explores positional calling as a way to expand the boundaries of choreography.
Categories: Callers, Contra Dance
Colin Hume gives his detailed thoughts and tips on composing dance music.
From Colin Hume
Categories: Musicians
“Do We Have To?” Copyright Basics
This article by Pat MacPherson provides some considerations on whether one needs to get permission to use someone else’s work when publishing a dance or tune book or when recording a CD.
From the CDSS News
Categories: Musicians
Tracking Copyrights and Composers
Susan Songer describes how she tracked down composers and copyrights for her one of her books of contra dance music.
From the CDSS News
Categories: Musicians
Making Jam Sessions Great, a guide for participants and leaders
An article from Dave Firestine about how to create a great jam session, both as a participant and leader.
From the CDSS News
Categories: Musicians, Organizers
This blog post provides some thoughts on how to lead an open band.
From Jeff Kaufman
Categories: Musicians
Madison’s Tuesday Night Dances—Fostering Talent for More Than Twenty Years
This article by Carol Ormand describes Madison, Wisconsin’s approach to developing talent through weekly dances that feature newer callers as well as an open band.
From the CDSS News
Categories: Musicians, Organizers
Improving the ECD Open Band Experience
Robert Reichert provides some suggestions on how to improve the experience of playing with, and the quality of music from an ECD open band.
From the CDSS News
Categories: English Country Dance, Musicians, Organizers
Open Dance Bands: Best Practices Shared by 35 Groups
This manual shares common best practices used by 35 open dance bands from throughout North America, and illustrates the diversity of approaches across communities. We hope this resource provides a great starting point for launching new open bands and additional inspiration for groups that have been playing together for years.
From Emily Addison and CDSS
Categories: Musicians, Organizers
This article by Sue Songer describes the power of guest musicians being able to play along with dance bands – in what is known as ‘the back row.’ It also describes how to successfully create this experience in your dance community.
From the CDSS News
Categories: Musicians
Thanks to the Massachusetts Cultural Council for their generous support.