House Dance

For one of our language learning sessions in May we went to a house dance on a Saturday afternoon. The dance took place at the home of George Isaac. He and his family hold events like this from time to time to celebrate birthdays. They set up some tents in the yard and brought out some lawn chairs. Elijah sat under one tent with the other musicians. There was a fiddle and some guitars set up with microphones and amplifiers.

Under another tent was a long table piled high with food – hominy in a large cooler, neck bone soup, banana pudding with vanilla wafers, sweet potatoes, greens, etc. And pop from Piggly Wiggly.

Historically a house dance is held in the evening. Folks come together to dance, talk and generally have fun together. In the past, a man would offer an item of food to a young lady in order to get her to dance with him. By the end of the evening, ladies would go home with armloads of fruit, veggies and other treats.

The dance we did was a social dance. Ladies and men stood in concentric circles. We followed the directions of the caller while keeping rhythm with the guitar and fiddle players. We gathered in two concentric circles - swinging partners and promenading.

It was beyond hot and very dusty. The rest of the time we were there I sat under a tree drinking water and working on a beading project.