| We left Cambridge and headed south towards Plymouth
and the Pinewoods Dance Camp. The quickest way to do this was to drive
straight through the middle of Boston. Not for the timid but we are
experienced travellers now. The traffic was very heavy all the way down
towards Cape Cod, but it kept moving. |  |
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Pinewoods sits on one of the many ponds (lakes) off Long Pond Road which
runs almost parallel to US 3 from Plymouth down to the Cape. This is
actually another lake nearby which we walked to one lunchtime. |
| We went to see a cranberry bog. This is a field of
cranberries. When they ripen in October, they will flood the field and send
out beaters to beat the cranberries from the plants. They will float and can
then be scooped off the surface. |  |
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The cranberries are just beginning to ripen in the field. |
| This is C# dance hall at Pinewoods, named after the
famous English dance collector Cecil Sharp. Most of the buildings have names
connected to English folk dance traditions. Accommodation is in wooden
cabins
with names like Bamford, Fieldtown, Newbiggin and Grenoside, the latter a north
Sheffield longsword team with whom I used to danced. |  |
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I looked underneath at the construction trying to see how sprung it was. I
am hoping to install a dance floor in a building I have at home which needs
a new floor. This floor is, alas, unsprung. |
| Our accommodation was in Fieldtown, cabin 4, which slept the
two of us very comfortably. Limited facilities inside, but there are good
toilets and showers in close proximity and we were fed three excellent
meals every day to give us the energy to dance. |  |
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There were many excellent dance and music teachers who led the week and some
wonderful musicians who despite mostly not having played together before
made a wonderful sound. The dance teachers above are Cis Hinkle
(traditional squares), Sue Rosen (contras and manager of the week), and Lisa
Greenfield.
Owen Morrison (far left) taught Irish Sets from Cork & Kerry as well
as being one of the musicians, Avi (behind him) was the
sound engineer, and Mark Simos, Andrea Cooper and Ben Rosen played for Cis and the squares as well as many
other events. |
| Only the Irish Sets managed a class photo. Great fun
was had by all. |  |
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This was American Dance week, and concentrated on American squares and
contras, but also had classes in Irish sets, swing and waltz together with
other less well known styles. Not all the participants were American,
These are two of the five Danish attending (their dancing and their English
put us to shame). |
| This lady was amazing because she danced almost every
dance each evening. The tee shirt was for real. She had better spatial
awareness and memory for what came next in each dance than I had. She set
quite an example for us to follow. And I was impressed by the way everybody
else, young and old, took care of her. It says a lot about a society that is
often criticised for its lack of care. |  |
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We made too many friends to show them all and we saw some amazing outfits.
But this took the biscuit for me. |
| We found (along with most other people) that we
couldn't maintain the pace. So we had an hour reading each afternoon in the
dappled shade of the trees around our cabin. |  |
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Over the years other folk have had too much time on their hands. This is a
musical chime cascade driven by marbles and housed in one of the
toilet/shower rooms. There were several of these! |
| Other people took the opportunity for a swim, or a
paddle in the canoes. I'm not sure the catamaran was not a visitor. This is
Long Pond. |  |
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The dance hall in full swing at night. This was the last night and there
were over a dozen musicians in the band. |
| Then it was time to leave. The road in is barely wider
than the RV and we had to hunt for a space to park it. But we managed it and
even managed some electricity for our fridge. |  |
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Most of the parking was in between the trees so we were quite lucky. |
| And so back up to Springville in New York, over 500
miles mostly on the interstates where we were passed by most vehicles
including this double trailer going to fill up another Walmart. At
Springville we stopped for a few days for maintenance, cleaning, and
laundry, so there are no pages for the next week. |  |
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