Roy Dommett’s Morris Notes Online Edition — the foundational resource, long out of print, available online.
Ted Sannella: Annotated Discography and Bibliography from Ted Sannella’s Swing the Next — The annotations and introduction for the Discography and Bibliography in Swing the Next (CDSS, 1996) are included here in their entirety. Swing the Next is a collection of 80 American square, contra, triplet and circle dances, the majority of them written by Ted Sannella, a master of the art of calling American traditional dances.
Robert G. Dalsemer: West Virginia Square Dances—Originally published by Country Dance and Song Society, 1982. Dalsemer describes dance figures as done in five rural West Virginia communities in the mid- to late-1970s and reports on their regular dance events, including programming, type of audience, price and method of admission, and the traditions of figure calling and musical performance. The history of each dance event is discussed, as is their on-going process of evolution. With appendices: a list of tunes commonly played for square dances; transcriptions of calls; and tunes for caller Worley Gardner’s singing and semi-singing calls.
Mary Dart: Contra Dance Choreography: A Reflection of Social Change—Originally published by Garland Publishing, Inc., New York & London, 1995. Mary Dart’s classic study explores “the way the choreography of the contra dance, a folk dance tradition brought to us from the British Isles, has been changing, particularly over the last twenty years.” The book, based on interviews with callers, dance composers and musicians, looks at new dances, how they are composed, and what aesthetic and cultural principles underlie the choreographic choices made.
Thanks to the Massachusetts Cultural Council for their generous support.