CONTRA DANCE – Casey Carr calling. Finnish music by Lauluaika & Metku

Name: CONTRA DANCE – Casey Carr calling. Finnish music by Lauluaika & Metku
Start: 2025-09-27T15:00:00-04:00
End: 2025-09-27T22:00:00-04:00
Location: CSMA 3rd Floor Performance Space

Schedule

Sat Sep 27 2025 at 03:00 pm to 10:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

CSMA 3rd Floor Performance Space | Ithaca, NY

ITHACA NY – A weekend of contra dancing, folk dancing and music with the combined talents of Lauluaika (Twin Cities, Minnesota) and Metku (Ithaca NY). Folk Dance; an introductory social dance workshop from 3-5 pm with live music from the combined bands. Then Saturday evening, we will have a full CONTRA DANCE 7-10 pm with calling by Ithaca favorite Casey Carr and music from this Finnish American power band combining Minnesota’s top Finnish folk band Lauluaika with Ithaca’s Metku quartet. The workshop and the contra dance will both take place in the Martha Hamblin Hall at Community School of Music and Arts (CSMA), 330 E. State Street, Ithaca NY. Admission is cash at the door. $8- for workshop, $15- for dance, $20- for both. Sunday jam session at Canaan Institute is free.
Jam Session Sunday – There will also be an instrumental jam session Sunday afternoon 2-5pm at The Canaan Institute in Brooktondale NY with members of both bands present. The focus will be Finnish dance tunes. Local band Metku will share tunes from their recent tune book and Lauluaika will offer some variations with mid-western flair. See https://www.metku.org and https://www.lauluaika.com and https://www.youtube.com/@Lauluaika
The Tompkins County based band Metku will be joined by Lauluaika, a Twin Cities, Minnesota, based band, to host a social dance workshop and contra dance on September 27, 2025 in Martha Hamblin Hall at the Community School of Music and Arts in downtown Ithaca, NY. The members of Lauluaika are Jaana Tuttila, Ralph Tuttila, Lotta Kiuru-Ribar, Dan Kiuru-Ribar, Eric Platt, Tamara Baker, and Johanna Solem. The members of Metku are Michael Ludgate, Katrina Mackey, and Phil Robinson. Richard Koski joins Metku when his schedule permits and he intends to participate in this collaboration. All the aforementioned band members are avocational musicians; some are avocational dancers as well. Additionally, Casey Carr has agreed to be the caller for the contra dance. This event and these bands will celebrate the joyful combination of music with community dancing by melding longstanding New England social and contra dance traditions with locally relevant Finnish American music.
Metku and Lauluaika share an interest in Finnish American and Finnish dance music. This dance music was played regularly in the Tompkins County communities of Newfield, Danby, and Trumansburg in the early decades of the 1900s, due to the number of Finnish immigrant farmers settling in the area at that time. Indeed, several Tompkins County roads bear the names of these settlers, such as Ruuspakka Road and Lampila Road in Newfield, and Vesa Road in Trumansburg. Although the longstanding Finnish American community in Tompkins County is dwindling, the lively dance music of that community is preserved by a few tradition bearers including Metku and Richard Koski. Similarly, Lauluaika draws their music from Upper Midwest Finnish American communities and tradition bearers, including Lauluaika’s Ralph Tuttila.
The afternoon social dance workshop will introduce beginner dancers to essential concepts of social dancing. These concepts include line of dance, ballroom hold, and general dance floor etiquette. The workshop could start with a Grand March, which is a follow-the-leader dance that gets everyone moving to music right away without needing specific instruction – the dance equivalent of a conversational ice breaker. The Grand March might be followed by instruction in waltz and polka. Lastly the group could progress to some mixer dances, incorporating the newly learned waltz and polka steps, and reinforcing the essential concepts of social dance. Other possibilities: For example, depending on participants’ interest, a jenkka dance step might be taught also. Music for this workshop will be drawn from the Finnish American repertoire. Jaana Tuttila from Lauluaika will lead the afternoon social dance workshop with occasional assistance from Johanna Solem and Katrina Mackey. Jaana is a gifted dance teacher who puts people at ease and instills confidence with her clear instruction.
The evening contra dance is expected to be a fun and energetic dance experience for all attendees. Contra dance is a cooperative social dance form that shares its roots with square dancing and uses many of the same figures, such as do-si-do and allemande left. Contra dance is beginner friendly because it does not require any particular footwork. A dance caller conducts an instructional walk-through for each dance before the music starts. Contra dance music is usually performed by a live band that draws from a repertoire of New England, Cape Breton, French Canadian, and Celtic fiddle tunes. This event is distinct from other area contra dances in that the combined bands will select many tunes from the Finnish American repertoire. Although these tunes have been played in parts of rural Tompkins County for over 100 years, very rarely are they programmed as the primary music for a contra dance. It is also very unusual to have a seven-piece dance band from the Upper Midwest performing for a contra dance in Ithaca. Casey Carr is a skilled caller who can simultaneously bring newcomers up to speed quickly while keeping experienced dancers engaged, and she will select dances that work well with the evening’s repertoire.
Both the social dance workshop and the contra dance are open to the public and beginners are encouraged to attend. Fortunately, Martha Hamblin Hall at the Community School of Music and Arts is large enough to also accommodate people who might want to sit and hear the music but are not interested or able to dance. Thus, in addition to the public, it is our hope that members of our sponsor organization, the Finger Lakes Finns, will consider attending this event. Many of them reside in Tompkins County. Although few still dance, they delight in hearing Finnish American music and reminiscing about their youthful dancing days while other folks do the actual dancing.
This exciting collaboration between Lauluaika and Metku arose from their combined performances at FinnFest in Duluth, MN, in July of 2024. The following excerpt from Lauluaika’s grant application to the American Scandinavian Foundation highlights the musical joy we shared at FinnFest, and that we want to bring to Tompkins County:
“The result was an energetic and fascinating evening of musical exchange and was so enjoyable that we invited Metku to join us for our own evening dances later in the festival. We found our tunes and dances were similar enough to be familiar, but while there was significant overlap in repertoire, each region also has its unique songs and styles.”
These activities are made possible in part by a generous grant from the American-Scandinavian Foundation.
These activities are made possible in part by Support from The Finger Lakes Finns.
We would also like to extend special thanks to The Community School of Music and Arts (CSMA) for their help with offering their venue. https://csma-ithaca.org/