Papa’s been wanting to incorporate dancing into the Abbott Family Band’s performance. The only problem is, none of us know how. Another problem is that we want a non-partner old-time dance and most of the old-time dances (contra dances, square dances, etc.) we’ve seen require partners.

Personally, I’ve never been on the dancing wagon. Bouncing around like an idiot just never really appealed to me—although I know it did in my younger days. However, if I don’t loosen up, then like the drop-out who’s forced to go to military school, eventually I’m gonna have to go to dancing class or improv class so today, I shook my feet out a bit as Papa and Mama were trying a few dance steps while Luke was fiddling. That’s a good start.

I think for most dances, like fiddle tunes, you have to be actually doing it to enjoy it. (And even then, I still don’t like it.) Watching a dance has never been particularly barrels of fun for the eyes. That said, the only dance I’ve really enjoyed watching is Bharatanatyam. Now if there was a way to do that without being a woman and spending a bakers dozen+ years doing it, that would be up my alley! (From there, it’d be a piece of cake incorporating it into bluegrass or mountain music.)

Anyhow, we took our first stab at clogging/square-dancing, as you can see above. Dancing With the Stars, here we come!