Carcassonne
"Joe," I said, "It's snowing! You think there's going to be a dance up on Carcassonne?"
"Oh, yeah," he replied, "There will be a big crowd on a night like this!" I had my doubts. Who is going to show up for a dance on top of a mountain on a night like this!? But I fired up my car and off we went up Elk Creek. And it was snowing and sticking to the road. And the road up there is mighty steep. But people were on the road and we were pushing cars and sliding all over that mountain. Over one mountain and down another, along the creek, then turn up the curve in the hill where boulders brace against the mountains and there at the top- Carcassonne Community Center.
Joe Begley was right. There was a big crowd at Carcassonne that night! Lee Boy Sexton on the banjo and Marion Sumner on fiddle were cranking it up. The pot belly stove heaved and sighed. Cornbread, soup beans, weannies and kraut with pineapple upside down cake in the kitchen. The dance caller danced and hollered out the calls!!! The place was hopping! "Mountain do si do, you swing mine and I'll swing yours! Gimme back mine and I'll give you back yours! Everybody swing! Promenade around the ring! Circle on back!"
I was a junior at Centre College in Danville, Ky 1973. Just finished was a new concert hall where we saw the Dave Brubeck jazz ensemble do "Take Five", the Vienna Boys Choir, and Richard Leakey talk about his archaelogical discovery of first humans in Africa. Prestigious events. But this was something more to me- the community young and old, the music, the food, and a dance that the whole community could readily join- an art event rooted in history and place. "Mow the wheat, cut the clover! Do it again, do it all over!"
Carcassonne in Letcher County, eastern Kentucky, started as a two room school house in 1925 and named after a medieval walled city in southern France. Re-purposed after consolidation, it is now a community center for family events, quilting, and dance. It is remote. I took my old music buddy from Leslie County to play the dance with me one time. So far out there, he said to me," I thought we were going coon hunting!"
"Right hands across with a how do you do! Left hand back with a fine thank you!"
"Two hands across. Ladies bow. Gents bow under. Rare right back and circle like thunder!"
I had seen Western Square dances with thier intricate swirls and fancy clothes- dances that had to be practiced with a record and then performed. No fancy dresses here. Come as you are. The figures were easy. And you could just learn the figures as you watched couples in a foursome in the circle take turns doing the figures. By the time it got around to your turn you knew how.
"Swing ma, swing pa, swing that gal from Arkansas!"
What gave the dance extra juice was how the caller danced and shouted out the calls. And that live music! They played with verve and conviction, old tunes that came here from Scotland, England, and Ireland. Sally Goodun, Soldier's Joy, Arkansas Traveler, Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss.
Here are some scenes from the Carcassonne Dance. Start up Elk Creek then over the mountain with a tune I learned from the playing of Snake Chapman- Sally Anne. I saw the opening lyric in the liner notes to his fiddle album.
"Sally Anne's the gal I like. She comes to dance on a Saturday night. And along around the break of day she takes up wings and flies away."
A lovely verse. It begged for more so I made up some. Hear it with scenes from Carcassonne.
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