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Editorial The magazine of The second half of a century should rightly see dev­ THE THE COUNTRY DANCE SOCIETY OF AMERICA elopments and changes, and, as we enter our 51st year, we EDITOR have one to report. May Ga.dd counTRY ASSOCIATE EDITOR This is the last issue of THE COUNTRY DANCER in its Lucy Wilder present form. It is to be replaced by COUNTRY DANCE AND SONG, which will be published annually, in the early part DRR(ER ART EDITOR of each year. The new magazine is expected to have as Genevieve Shimer much content as two issues of our present magazine, to include both serious and light articles, and material of interest to both folk dancers and folk musicians . The interest s of recorder and of viol players will be consid­ THE COUNTRY DANCER is published t wice a year. Subscrip­ ered also. The magazine will be supplemented by NEWS­ tion i s by member ship i n the Country Dance Society of LETTERS to be issued several times a year. These Letters America (annual dues $5 , educational institutions and will circulate personal items of interest to CDS members libraries, $3). Inquiries and subscr i pti ons should be and Centers, news of coming events, and reports of those sent to the Secretar y, Country Dance Society of America. that have been held. We shall need to hear from all of 55 Chri stopher Street , New York, N.Y. 10014 Tel.255-8895 you. Copyright 1966 by the Country Dance Society, Inc. One reason for the magazine's change of name is to recognize developments in the Society's work in the field of folk music, as applied to song rather than dance. The Folk Music Week at Pinewoods Camp has been steadily grow­ Table or Co ntents ing in range, depth and quality. Following the 1965 Camp, the PINEWOODS FOLK MUSIC CLUB OF THE COUNTRY DANCE SOCIETY OF AMERICA was formed by a number of members who had attended the Week. The activities of the Club are re­ ported elsewhere in this magazine, but we should like to Editorial 3 compliment the committee on the varied program of acti­ "Fif ty Years On" 4 vities that they have produced during their first season, Voyager Trio Embarks 5 on the quality and i nterest of the material used, and on Where the Action Is 6 the artists that they were able to attract as Leaders for Chestnut ll their monthly Workshops and for the May Weekend. Member­ The Nibs and Jean New World Reel 12 ship in the club is open to all and Newsletters are sent An (Urban) Folksinger's Almanac 14 at frequent intervals. This club represents the So ciety's The Golden Jubilee Year 16 folk music interests in the national headquarters area. A Historic Discovery is Reported 21 We shall welcome the formation of folk music clubs, af­ News from All Over 23 filiated with CDS, i n other parts of the country. Boston Centre's Own Jubilee 25 Frank Proffitt Memorial 27 MAY GADD Folk Music Ambassador 29 Book and Record Reviews 30 THEATRE BENEFIT A Pl ea from the Top 35 C.D.S. warmly thanks Norman Singer , Special Projects PICTURE CREDITS Gloria Berchielli, 18b, 35; Stan Levy, Committee Chairman, who made it possible for the Society 13, 16, 17, 18a, 19, 20; George Pi ckow, 27 to sell a block of t i ckets for "Les Feux Follets", an ex­ citing program of the various ethnic groups in Canada. 2 3 " Fifty Years On " Voytger Trio Embarks In a Golden Jubilee year countless people of all Jack Langstaff, Happy Traum, and Robin Roberts How­ ages have the chance to look back with gratitude, each ard have combined forces for a new kind of theatre pro­ to their own special occasions, and project their good gram called "Voyages in Poetry and Folk Song", in which wishes for the future, in a general aura of celebration. they have been appearing throughout the country during Personally, I recollect over the whole range of fifty the 1965-66 season. The program, built in six sections years, from the days when we in England in war-time were titled They Rigged Their Sails, One May Morning, Born to hearing by letters from Cecil Sharp how he had found the Hard Work, Wild Imaginings, Righteous Anger, and Come and Americans quite kindly disposed toward English folk dan­ Go With Me, presents songs and poems in sequences design­ ces and songs and how he hoped for even better things in ed to bring out most tellingly the meaning and emphasis the future. lile didn't live to enjoy all these better of each. The songs are from the British and American things, but, as all the world knows, he had the exper­ traditions with guitar or banjo accompaniment, while the ience of his life among the singers of the Southern Appa­ poems range from the Bible and Mother Goose to Kazantzakis lachian Mountains, and his work there and in Engl.a.r:d for and E. E. Cummings. To open the program, the chanteys folk song is now part of history. But the folk dance also Away Rio! and The Drunken Sailor are followed by a sel­ bas its history of interchange between the u. K. and the ection from Kazantzakis' sequel to the Odyssey; at the U. S. A., and there are many of us who remember the ex­ close, a section from Walt Whitman's Song of the Open citement of learning Kentucky set-running from Cecil Road is followed by the gospel song Come and Go With Me. Sharp and Ma.u:l Karpeles, when they returned to England after their visit in 1917, and can recall how pleased According to one of the many enthusiastic reviews, they were at the way the Americans had fallen for the "Perhaps the most significant point of the entire perform­ English folk dances. I remember vividly our own first ance of Voyages in Poetry and Folk Song was the manner in visit, when we travelled with May Gadd to the Amherst which a wide range and variety of poems and ballads got School of 1927, and our trip down to Plymouth with Mrs. blended into a coherent fascinating pattern •.. , James J. Storrow to see Pinewoods camp. May Gadd stay- ed behind to make a new life for herself in America; but "The three performers went through sections of bal­ we kept on returning at intervals, sometimes with our lads and folk songs in such a neatly patterned sequence children, John and Peter, and always with pleasure and that each song or ballad appeared to follow, logically refreshment from our experience of this close contact with and meaningfully, the previous one ••. Americans who to us seemed so 1'ull of enthusiasm and appreciation of the English tradition. Whenever one or "The Langstaff - Howard - Traum Trio had pleasing more of the Americans visited England we had the same personalities, knowledge of song, verse, voice, and mus­ sense of this lively responsiveness. We feel that the ical style accompanied by a vast appreciation of the lit­ Society in England owes a great debt to the Americans erature with which they dealt ..• " and to the Country Dance Society of America for the constant refreshment and inspiration through the fifty According to a California review, it was "a delight­ years. ful program ••.• The selection of material was excellent and it was offered in good taste and dramatic form." It is with affection and gratitu:le that we send our congratulations and warmest good wishes to the Country Plans are being made for a further tour of the trio Dance Society, to its officers, and to all its members next season. on this occasion of the completion of the first fifty years and the opening of the second fifty. DOUGLAS and JIELEN KENNEDY Vice-Presidents, English Folk Dance and Song Society 4 5 Osiris or Dionysos in a pageant through the streets of Where the Action Is the town. What we know of the development of the classic At the close of the Pinewoods staff concert of Cham­ theatre is a history of successive differentiations be­ ber music last summer, instead of the usual bow-and-exit tween its parts. With the division of the celebrants the musicians formed a procession, a.nd singing and play­ into spectators and performers came the structure of the ing th~y wended their way outside, made a half-turn (clock­ Greek theatre itself: a natural amphitheatre formed by wise) around the camphouse, and headed for immersion in a hillside where the audience sat, with a flat circle the waters of Long Po.nd. To the audience, this at first for the choral dancing {the "orchestra"} at the foot of looked like a gimmick exit from the stage--but when the the slope, where the chorus danced and sang for the aud­ music continued above the laughter and applause, everyone ience on the hillside, in their stead so to speak. Then quieted long enough to find out what was going on, spot­ the actor appeared--at first simply the leader of the ted the procession outside, and then--of course--follow­ chorus, but before long the leader became a kind of in­ ed, some to the very brink. Pied Piper? Lemmings to the terlocutor, and in the ensuing dialogue between chorus sea? Crossing over Jordan? Pick your analogy--there are and actor, the chorus was understood to speak for the plenty to choose from, because the incident shows the audience.

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