Dance Night at the Barn: Documenting the Line Dancing Tradition of Upstate New York

After graduating from the Folklore program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I was excited about moving to upstate New York to do my internship at the Folklife Center at Crandall Public Library in Glens Falls. Escaping the summer heat and Southern humidity also were a big part of m...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Voices (New York Folklore Society) 2019-09, Vol.45 (3-4), p.28-34
Main Author: Voloshyna, Iryna
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Country music
Dance
Documentation
Line dancing
Music
Public libraries
Semiotics
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Summary:After graduating from the Folklore program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I was excited about moving to upstate New York to do my internship at the Folklife Center at Crandall Public Library in Glens Falls. Escaping the summer heat and Southern humidity also were a big part of my excitement. Looking for a place to live was not easy, hence, the specificity of the region. Tourist-oriented accommodations were too expensive for me. Luckily, I ended up renting a place in Corinth, Saratoga County, New York. My first impression of the village was that a lack of entertainment was balanced out by the cleanest mountain air, easy access to the local beach on the Hudson River, multiple hiking trails, and a chance to observe bright stars in the silence from my deck at night. Little did I know about the silence! As it turned out, I found out very soon that my landlords, local business owners, host music events several nights a week at a place called "The Barn" in downtown Corinth. Whether I wanted it or not, every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday night, I could be sitting at home or on the deck, hearing musicians playing on the stage and seeing people dancing to the music, often with their ice cream or a hot dog in hand. Half joking, I told my supervisor Todd De-Garmo, Director of the Folklife Center, about these musical evenings. We both agreed that it was very sweet, and he once mentioned that it could even be worth documenting. Because these music nights had quickly become my new routine, I hadn't thought of them seriously (like many of us sometimes do!), as being culturally significant enough for documentation.
ISSN:1551-7268