I've "guest-posted" on my friend Carole Ann's Connect the Dots blog She asks great questions about being creative.

And if you're in Pawtucket today, be sure to stop by the Labor & Ethnic Heritage Festival at Slater Mill. The Whatnots go on at 2 PM.

Best of Rhode Island: Community Music Program

Yes, it's true! If you pick up a copy of RI Monthly magazine this month and open to the Best of RI Editor's Pick 2010 for Community Music Program, the winner is Fiddle & Dance Project!

Looking forward to thanking everyone who's helped us get started over the past year: dancers, students, Woodlawn CDC, Community MusicWorks, RISCA, Pawtucket community members, fellow musicians, and YOU for checking in here on this blog!

Block Party Today

Rachel will have a program table today at the Knowledge is Power block party starting at 2pm -- right across from Woodlawn CDC at Payne Park.

what is contra dancing anyway?

just ask NPR!

CMW Fiddle Lab plays for a dance

Here is a one minute glance at Providence Youth Arts Collaborative's (PYAC) Youth Arts Day, called Roots and Rituals, on May 22, 2010. In this clip you see the moment after Fiddle Lab students from Community MusicWorks taught and demonstrated the Seven Step dance, then joined the group on stage to play while the audience members danced along. Check out the key change halfway through!

June Fiddling Celebration & Community Dance: photos (& what's not in them)

Top 3 things I'd like to show in pictures, but I've only got in memory:

1. students passing a block of rosin down the front row where they were sitting right before the performances began, making sure everyone had some on his/her bow

2. high school students leading younger students through our bow games, then, without being asked, leading those students in improvisation

3. students coaxing their parents, siblings, and friends into dancing "just one more dance"

dances of all shapes and sizes

May was happily a busy dance month for me, starting out with a surprise gig at the Brown Spring Fling:

the next week I took part in the 2nd annual South County open band dance -- now just imagine this number of people also on stage in the band!

Then there was a visit to Little Rhody Vasa Park in Foster with the Cicadas. There we saw a couple who are contra dancing their way through all 50 states!