In New England, there has long been a deep affection for traditional dance and its corresponding music. Folk dance joins us together, lifting us out of inhibitions, anxieties, and our acculturated need to exert control. It requires our participation as individuals, yet we embrace it as an exercise in group dynamics. The Yankee instinct for community art has been the inspiration behind Dudley Laufman’s lifelong stewardship of country dance, which is the story at the heart of 'All Join Hands'.
Years of performances in famous venues and small villages led to Laufman receiving the NEA’s National Heritage Fellowship Award, the nation’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. In reaction, Ernest Thompson, New Hampshire resident and author of On Golden Pond, declared “I think Dudley Laufman belongs in the pantheon of genuine American artists. He belongs in Franconia Notch, the real Old Man of the Mountain.”
Thomas S. Curren is a writer, farmer, conservationist, and historian. He has served as a town selectman, a town moderator, and a non-profit consultant, and volunteers for the Folk New England Archive at the University of Massachusetts. As project director with the Pew Charitable Trusts and as director of local conservation organizations, he has helped enable the conservation of nearly 900,000 acres in New England, New York, and Pennsylvania’s Amish country. An authority on New England culture and landscape, his previous books include I Believe I’ll Go Back Home: Roots and Revival in New England Folk Music as well as four histories of New Hampshire towns. Part of the group “The Good Old Plough,” he plays and sings traditional music—at times with Dudley Laufman and friends. He lives in rural New Hampshire. --Publisher's blurb
Join NH author Thomas Curren at Gibson's Bookstore on Tuesday, May 16th, 2023 at 6:30 p.m. where he will present his newest book and join Dudley Laufman in conversation. Dudley promises a musical performance as well!
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