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- 1 Madeline Uraneck, left, captures the attention of the visitors to Folklore Village on a Saturday night potluck. Hungarian and German folk painting decorate woodwork, and a harvest wreath hangs from the schoolhouse ceiling. (Photo compliments of Folklore Village, by Roger Turner, WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL) [original picture appeared on p.1 in a State Journal article on November 30, 1975] By Madeline Uraneck If you happen to be wandering the back roads of Iowa County, between the Wakefield Cheese Factory and the Old Military Ridge Road, you would discover an 84-year-old school house standing stately and well-kept on a wind-swept hill. A heart shaped sign designates the place "Folklore Village Farm.” As it stands there in its simplicity, so quiet amidst the fields of corn and alfalfa, you would not guess that it is one of the country’s best loved and most unique folk art centers. Superb folk musicians from Norway and Denmark have made its walls quiver with sparkling, foot-tapping fiddle music. Dance groups from the very folk heart of Sweden and England have delighted dancers and audiences there. Its rafters have been shaken by the throb of drums from Turkey, Israel, and Rumania. Here have thousands of children spent afternoons of laughter, - 2 exploring games and dances of the world’s children. Teen groups have danced there following toboggan parties and taffy pulls, and senior citizens have been welcomed in for sing-alongs, shadow plays and rosemaling workshops. The secret of its conversion from empty school house to internationally known dance center lies in the fantastic warmth and energies of a single woman, Jane Farwell, who alternately dons grubby workpants and folky dirndls in her roles as director, custodian, hostess, cook, gardener, and teacher. Folklore Village philosophy runs directly counter to the view of individual-as-spectator, individual-as-number, as factory-cog. The brochure states: “In today's transient, insecure world of constant change, roots are hard to put down, and one’s work life seldom gives a complete sense of worth as a person. .Our human yearnings for roots and worth can often be eased by identifying with traditional celebrations, the re-creation of which can give life greater meaning.” Very early she hit upon a simple formula for bringing people closer to these roots and to one another – through participation in games, crafts, and drama, but mostly in folk dance. How many thousands of times has she witnessed the joy in the eyes of a person discovering for the first time that he can dance? Without even seeming to, she coaxes reluctant feet to the floor, smiling with a nod as the person protests he “only came to watch.” Nervous laughter greets her first little joke and roll of troll-like eyes, but within minutes the room takes on an almost visibly kinetic energy. People are laughing, relaxed, fully alive – a joie de vivre shining in their eyes. Simplicity of the Dance We grow up largely without dance in our daily lives. in this country, it is something for The Beautiful People in Hilton ballrooms, for teens in bass-vibrating school gyms, for ballerinas who start when they are 3 – something to make us look ridiculous and feel awkward clutching a perfect stranger in our arms. Dance among peasant people was a part of every celebration. Fat old men bounced at the front of a long line; women joined in, singing; and children tagged along at the end of the line, not knowing the steps, but feeling welcome. Women had dances to symbolize their harvest motions, birth-giving. Men had dances to show their prowess, to symbolize combat. In many communities, dance functioned as the sole time young men and women were allowed to socialize. It was for everyone – old people, fat people, children. Folk dances were simple . the music rich. Jane Farwell’s teaching repertoire is committed to simple dances, and her life to being a catalyst – introducing the non-dancer to an expressiveness within himself, creating in rooms full of strangers a feeling of community and belonging. But Folklore Village's distinguishing feature is as a place where there is dancing-PLUS. In the - 3 realm of folklore, dance is only a part. Jane Farwell Jane Farwell, the organizer and moving spirit behind Folklore Village. (Photos – left, Emily Osborn, right, L. Roger Turner, State Journal). Jane Farwell epitomizes a folk person who somehow strayed into a modern world. Her thinking is intuitive, her organizing non-directive, her relationships warm, caring, manipulative; her rapport immediate. In her twinkling eyes, you see how young she really is. Graduating with a self-designed major in rural recreation from Ohio’s Antioch College, she got her first taste of ethnic folk dance from Russian and Greek groups in “Hell’s Kitchen,” 1940’s and 50’s ethnic neighborhoods of New York City. As a freelance recreation specialist, she logged thousands of miles in the Midwest, Southwest, and West Virginia, leaving in her wake the nation's first folk dance camps and many recreation leadership laboratories. Also left behind wherever she went were new additions to the ever-growing “Jane Farwell legend” – anecdotes of her mischief, warmth, and of her reputation for going to ridiculous lengths both to see that people had fun and to insist certain things were “authentic.” Christmas trees HAD to have real, lighted candles. Smorgasbord tablecloths HAD to be white linen. Festival invitations HAD to be handmade and hand-addressed, even if there were 500 of them to be mailed. A marriage to an agricultural German exchange student working at her family’s farm took her to Germany to live for 12 years, from 1957-1966. Failing to conform to the image of a German house frau, despite assiduous gardening and house-cleaning attempts, she began carrying her - 4 unique recreation work through Europe, teaching workshops in the Alps’ ski chalets, German and Austrian beer gardens, Scandinavian festivals, and for the YMCA of Japan. Saddened by the news of the approaching death of her poet-farmer father, she returned to the family farm, her birthplace, in 1967, to establish Folklore Village, a dream which has been growing. The Farm The Farwell farm, on County BB seven miles west of Dodgeville, is one of Wisconsin’s “Century Farms.” Jane lives there with her 88 year old mother, a regal character who commands respect. She herself travelled by horse-and-buggy all over Iowa County in her youth with her mother, Alice Cape, who was famous for presenting “entertainments” at the one- room schoolhouses, evenings of dramatic readings and declamations, for which they were paid $5-10 per night. A love for schoolhouses must have been passed by blood to Jane, for in 1967 she purchased back the old Wakefield School and its one half acre of land which her grandfather had donated to the county in 1893. Now the schoolhouse is ornamented with Norwegian rosemaling and German and Hungarian folk painting, and curtains sewn from material imported from Germany. A scarred bass fiddle and a washtub bass stand silently in the corner, waiting for Saturday nights, when they are thumped to life by anyone willing to give them a try. Two bunk houses, both designed by Jane in the style of Swiss and Danish hostels, can accommodate 25 on week-ends. A large outhouse boasts a copper bathtub, copper wash basin, and the beginnings of a sauna. It has that folky smell, too. Younger people who try to work at the Farm are taken aback by the boundlessness of Jane Farwell Energy. Breakfasts at the house are late, beginning too often with the persistent ringing of the telephone or small-salaried “employees” banging in through the kitchen door. Amidst burning toast and supervising the garbage pick-up, she makes telephone calls organizing a citizen's highway meeting, dashes off a reply to a group which has invited her, months ago, to teach dancing next week in Alabama, and then begins calling mothers to re-start her children’s afternoon folk dance classes. Highway calls get mixed with mother calls. The staff’s lunch is fixed while the ponies’ water over-runs. Only late at night can she begin her own correspondence, research, and planning. An early morning hunter who drives by at 4 a.m. may see the light burning at her desk. Saturday Nights Most people who meet Folklore Village are introduced on any Saturday night of the year. A pot- luck dinner, by candle-light, precedes several hours of dancing and a midnight snack. As the food is pot-luck, so are the people. Regulars who come muse on its unpredictability – one evening will bring only 8, the next, 60. One Saturday night might be full of Madison freaks; on - 5 another, a busload from a senior citizen’s club will arrive from Dubuque. It is on these Saturday evenings that the old schoolhouse comes alive again. The music of a couple young fiddlers lifts your heart as you throw open the door from the windy, cold outdoors. Smells of fresh bread tantalize the nose, and you are thrust into a cloak room of smiling strangers – in the process of removing your galoshes, managing to meet half a dozen others, all also apparently there for their first time. Isn’t anyone in charge here? The dinner is running late, people appear to be just starting to bring in iced-over tables from the snow, for covering with red-checked tablecloths. Someone starts the coffee and gets pots of water heating on the stove for dishes afterwards. Finally, a bell is rung, a few words of self-conscious welcome are mumbled, and serious eating, talking, introductions, and laughter can get underway.

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