Hey there..... One day after getting back from a weeks worth of contra dancing in Morgantown and I am feeling pretty puny. Ended up catching something the last day or so there, very easy to do when you are in direct contact with hundreds of people, and by last night it was a full blown case of a cold or flu or some other upper sinus/throat kind of thing. For all of that it hasn't been all that bad except at night when I try to sleep and my nose plugs up with so much gunk that I can no longer breath. yuck!
   So I have been eating a lot of aspirin and snorting salt water up my nose as well as taking naps all day long. I would like to think it is somewhat better today, but it really isn't.... so maybe by tomorrow.
    In the meantime it has meant not being able to go to another dance weekend over in Jonesbourough Tennessee this weekend. That would of been starting in about 30 minutes if we were there, but since I can't even bend over and tie my own shoes with out my head exploding it is probably better that we, or at least I, didn't go. I still think Rima should of gone over without me.
   So I have been staying busy reading books and checking out pictures and videos from this last weekends dance. There are always a few people who take pictures and videos of the dances and most turn out about the way you would expect them too. But there are several very good photographers out there and they produce a lot of very nice photo's and a few nice videos. I am hoping that a few videos from this last week will start to appear on facebook and youtube as I would like to upload a few of them to this site.
   It came to me that I have been talking about contra dancing for several years now, but most of you have probably never seen or heard any of it done before. So today I learned how to upload off of youtube and I am going to start out with my all time favorite contra dance video.
   Taken several years ago in Oswego NY it is a very professionally done video shot during the Great Bear Trio's own hometown dance weekend, the 'Groove'. So you can actually hear the music and see the dancers even though the cutting is pretty quick at times. Please notice the smiles on every ones faces and that the dancers are of all sizes and ages. The great Bear Trio are comprised of the young guys on guitar and fiddle with their mom on keyboards. The guy playing trombone, Nils is also the caller while the two sax players are friends as is 'Pokey' on drums. The tune is an old contra dance tune, but certainly played in a different way. The video was shot over the course of 3 nights and while edited, still gives a good idea of what contra dancing can be like at times. Enjoy.

Great Bear Trio at the Groove - 2009?

brk*