When that holiday whirl has wound down, the balmy breezes of mid-winter in Madison mean it's time for major folkdance frolic at the annual Folk Ball Festival weekend,
scheduled for January 25-27 at the Memorial Union & other downtown venues.
Host group Ensemble Narodno cordially invites you to enjoy three days of workshops,
jam sessions, live music dance parties, performances, and other hijinks
at the Midwest's largest and liveliest participatory folkdance festival,
now in its dangerously adolescent 14th year.

Format of the popular Friday night Folk Ball Contra at Grace Church Guildhall (W. Washington at the Square) has this year been elaborated to offer both an opening set of Irish set dances beginning at 7:30 (preceded by instruction at 7pm) with music by Public House Ceili Band AND the traditional contra bash to music of Last Gaspe with calling by Roger Diggle!
This dance is a benefit event for the homeless shelter at Grace church.
Contra regulars should note that the Folk Ball Contra stands in for the usual fourth weekend contra dance.

Outstanding folkdance bands from around the Midwest power the celebrated Folk Ball dance parties at Great Hall both Friday and Saturday evenings. Friday's bash commences with a Musicians Jam (with dancing, of course!) at 7pm, followed by regular band sets by Yid Vicious, Spatter Dash, and Szaszka.  The centerpiece Saturday party features band sets by Boris & Natasha, Izvor Orchestra, Reptile Palace Orchestra, and Szaszka, as well as brief early-evening dance performances by Ethnic Dance Theatre and
Narodno.

A Singers Jam is planned for Friday night in the Langdon Room of the Union.

Saturday's three large-venue folkdance workshops at Great Hall feature Steve Kotansky, the most versatile Eastern European folkdance instructor on the scene today, presenting material from the Rom (Gypsy) and Slavic people of Kosovo and Macedonia,
the Croatians of southern Hungary, and the Hungarians of Transylvania.  Borders?  What borders?

Other Saturday workshop opportunities will include Scottish Country Dancing & singing with Navan (Celtic)
and Tri Bratovchedki (E. European).  Other workshops are still being planned.
Such emerging developments, schedule details, housing & restaurant information, and other useful tidbits will be posted in early January at the Folk Ball 2002 website:
website   http://plantpath.wisc.edu/~tdd/Fb2002.htm.

A dance review session with Steve is scheduled for Grace Guildhall on Sunday 1:00-4:00pm.

For further information, or to receive Folk Ball details by email, please contact Michael at 608-241-3655 or mk@mailbag.com.
To offer crash space to our out-of-town festival participants, please contact Head Houser, Tami Dettinger at 608-274-3132 or tjdettin@yahoo.com.

The Folk Ball is supported almost entirely by YOUR DONATIONS at the Folk Ball events -- please contribute generously at each session you attend.
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Thank you!

Special thanks to UW Department of Slavic Languages & Literature for academic sponsorship and to the Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia and Village Dance House for financial support.