“Dancing at the Crossroads: Magic, Myths, and Transformations”: multi-cultural music & dance with the TTU Celtic Ensemble, Sunday April 15 at 7:00 PM: School of Music M01, TTU Campus (corner of 18th & Boston)
On Sunday April 15 at 7:00 PM in School of Music M01 on the TTU campus, the Texas Tech University Celtic Ensemble (http://ttucelticensemble.com) presents a concert entitled “Dancing at the Crossroads: Magic, Myths, and Transformations.” Singers, players, and dancers will present a program of dances, songs, and instrumentals from Ireland, Scotland, England, the Caribbean, and the American South.
Admission is free. Students, families, and seniors are especially welcome.
Featured special guests: Caprock Morris Border morris dance team (http://caprockmorris.com)
About the Program
In the Celtic nations of Ireland, Scotland, and England, and in the American South, the metaphor of the crossroads was a very powerful one: a place of choice, of transformation, of meetings between peoples, places, and history; between this world and the next. Bluesmen went “down to the Crossroads” to bargain with Mr Scratch, who demanded a high price for guitar-picking skills; the Wild Hunt roared across the moonlit skies of the Highlands; the Famine Irish left the quays of Derry and Cork to find a new home in the “Uttermost West”; True Thomas returned to Huntlie Bank to find his way back from Faerie, and the old West African gods traveled west with the Middle Passage to take up new residence as Elegua and Legba in the Caribbean. All these people, places, and music met at the crossroads of history and myth, and the music of these meetings transformed the history of the world.
About the Music
In this program, drawing upon the songs of the Travelling people, the blues & sanctified singing of the American South, dance music from across the Celtic World, and music from farther afield, the TTU Celtic Ensemble evokes the crossroads dances of old Ireland, supernatural encounters on Scottish lanes, singing gypsies and tinkers on the highways and byways of old England, and the power of dance, music, and creativity: the meetings which have enabled people around the world and across the centuries to dance and sing their way to freedom.
Features songs, listening music, and dances, including polkas & slides from Cork & Kerry; sean-nos hard-shoe from Connemara and ritual dance from England; traditional and original compositions; solo, ensemble, and group singing in Broad Scots and English; and a re-imagining of bluesman Blind Willie Johnson’s titanic sermon on Revelations.
Special guests: Caprock Morris Border morris dance team (http://caprockmorris.com)
Co-sponsored by the TTU Vernacular Music Center (http://ttuvmc.org), the School of Music (http://www.music.ttu.edu) and the Roots Music Institute (http://rootsmusicinstitute.com)
About the band
TTU's Celtic Ensemble is a small ensemble of singers, instrumentalists, and dancers specializing in group performance of the traditional dance music and song of the seven Celtic nations: Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall, Galicia, and the Isle of Man. The ensemble learns and plays their repertoire by ear, combining timber flute, tin whistle, fiddles, mandola, guitar, harp, banjo, percussion, accordion, double-bass, and brass and wind instruments with dancing and solo and choral song, in Irish and Scots Gaelic, Gwerz, French, Welsh, and English.
Ensemble websites at: http://ttucelticensemble.com and http://on.fb.me/hoiqxP
Caprock Morris: “Border” or “Rag” Morris is an ancient ritual folk-dance style from the Border country of England and Wales. Dressed in rags and tatters, wearing bells and face-paint, whooping and clashing sticks, the Border Morris “side” (team) dances the highways and byways of the countryside, capering through the complex figures of dances like “Hell’s Bells” and “The Belligerent Blue Jays.” Caprock Morris is sponsored by the Vernacular Music Center, and participates in concerts, collaborations, and educational events throughout the region, including in the annual Celtic Christmas and “Dancing at the Turning of the Year”. Ensemble website at: http://caprockmorris.com
Facebook group at: http://tinyurl.com/ygm7hsp
Facebook “event” at http://on.fb.me/Hf5lvg
Media contact: Celtic Ensemble director Dr Christopher Smith at TTU School of Music: 806.742-2270 x266 christopher.smith@ttu.edu; also VMC Administrative Coordinator Abi Rhoades (thegoddessreborn@hotmail.com)
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Posted:
4/12/2012
Originator:
CHRISTOPHER J Smith
Email:
christopher.smith@ttu.edu
Department:
School of Music
Event Information
Time: 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Event Date: 4/15/2012
Location:
School of Music M01
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