Location
The dance will be upstairs at the Public Option, a pub in Northeast DC. It’s very accessible to public transportation, located less than a mile from the Rhode Island Avenue Metro station and served by five bus routes:
There’s also free street parking in front of the bar (during bal hours) and on side streets just off of Rhode Island Avenue.
Schedule
| 5:45 | Committee arrives for setup/decoration |
| 6:00 | Band (that’s you) and sound technician (Helen Whitty) arrive and begin sound setup |
| 7:00 | Doors open for bal folk dance lesson with recorded music |
| 8:00 | Beginning of dance |
| 11:30 | End of dance; beginning of cleanup |
| 12:00 | End of cleanup; doors locked |
During the main 8:00 – 11:30 dance time, we’ve found that a two-break/three-set format works really well, but you can adjust it to how you see fit.
Programming
You all program the evening based on what you’d like to play; just announce the next dance or tune you’re going to play, and if it’s a less familiar one, the committee might do a quick 2-minute teach on the floor.
The mix of dances we have in mind is something like this:
In general, we expect that we’ll spend 70%-80% of the evening drawing from the standard bal folk repertoire:
- Scottish
- 3-time waltz
- Mazurka
- 2-time bourrée
- Hanter dro
- An dro
- Chapelloise
- Cercle circassien
- Gavotte de l’Aven
We hope that the rest of the time will include a variety of other dances, including (some of):
- Polka
- 3-time bourrée
- Rond de St. Vincent
- Tricot
- Gavotte des montagnes
- Rondeau en chaîne (“the fast one”)
- Rondeau en couple (“the slow one”)
There are a few dances that we like to dance from time to time that we can teach with a bit of advance notice:
- Bal limousin
- 5-time waltz (and higher-count waltzes)
- 6-time ridée
- 8-time laridé
- Dañs plinn
- Kas a barh
- Branle de Cassandre
- Branle de Noirmoutier
Compensation
We’ll pay the band $300, with the possibility of profit-sharing if there’s high attendance.
Although we can definitely pay in cash if that’s preferred, we appreciate when we can pay electronically by PayPal!
Bal DC 