Back in the spring of 2003, my first friend in Albuquerque introduced me to an activity I'd never heard of: international folk dancing. I tried it out and have been hooked ever since. The variety is astonishing. There are actually a handful of social dance groups in town that do international folk dances, and between them you can learn dances from nearly every country and ethnic group on Earth, from Azerbaijan and Bedouin to Pakistani and West African to various styles of Gypsy. Many of these dances come from towns and villages all round the world and have been done for generations. Others are new creations by choreographers of various ethnicities. Many are done in circles or short lines, either holding hands or individually; others are done with partners, and some are mixers. They also usually throw in at least one each of swing, waltz, contra, and Latin dance (such as rueda or meringue) each evening. The dances range from slow and simple to fast and furious. The initial learning curve can be a little steep, but all these groups provide instruction every night, so if you go often, you catch on quickly. No membership or previous experience is required. One of the best parts is that it's so inexpensive! They usually ask for between $1 and $5 per night and meet every week. You can't beat a deal like that.

Here are some of the groups I've been to, with links to web pages when I have them:

AIFDF, or Albuquerque International Folk Dance Foundation. This is the one I attend most often, and is probably the largest of the international folk dance groups in terms of attendance. AIFDF certainly has the widest variety of dances of any group I've been to, and it also has the largest age range of attendees (i.e. pre-teens to 70s), with several parents bringing their kids. (They even have a kids dance lesson once a month). The group has existed for some 30 years or so, and if you put together the collective knowledge of everyone who's been dancing there for years, they probably have well over 1000 dances that can be done on the spot. They have far more dance tunes than that in their recording database. All the dances are done to recorded music, except on occasion when a traveling group of musicians comes through and treats us to live music from Romania or wherever the visitors happen to be from. AIFDF meets every Saturday night, with teaching starting promptly at 7:15 p.m. (so be a few minutes early) and request & program dancing from 8:15 until about 10:30 or so. They meet at the Lloyd Shaw Dance Center, 2 blocks south of Central and 2 blocks east of San Mateo on a little spur of Coal Rd (not the main one-way street). There's a map at their web site. They ask for $2 each Saturday from everyone who can afford it. This group is actively looking for new people, and is starting up a beginner's class this Saturday, January 23. You get nine weeks of lessons for $25, which is ridiculously cheap. For more about that, go to their web site, or read Stacy's event post here on Duke City Fix.

Here's a picture of some of us at AIFDF doing a line dance, with Gary Diggs, our lead teacher, in front. I'm the guy in the red shirt and glasses (though I no longer need those due to having Lasik a few days ago):

Several smaller groups have information listed at the above group's web site, here. These include an international folk dance group that meets in the east mountains at the Cedar Crest Fitness Center on Sundays from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. ($1 per night; mostly attended by mid-high and high school students and their families); another that meets at the social hall of First Unitarian Church on Carlisle & Comanche, currently meeting on Friday nights at 8:00 (also $1 per night, with lots of Balkan and classic Israeli dances; this is the longest running folk dance group in Albuquerque, having been around more than 50 years); and two groups of more focused ethnic dances that meet at Lloyd Shaw on alternating Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m.: Scandinavian and Hungarian, with a focus on couples dances. The lead teacher of AIFDF, Gary Diggs, also teaches Argentine tango on Monday nights at Lloyd Shaw. I've attended all of these groups at least once. When I first started, I attended both AIFDF and the group at First Unitarian every week, so I got up to speed fairly quickly. I enjoy it all, I just don't have time to do everything. (If I didn't have to work, I'd be dancing all the time.) The attendees of all these groups and others in the region get together and hold a yearly dance camp in August. To raise money for it, AIFDF holds a costume theme dance party each spring called the Scholarship Ball. We really have a lot of fun together as a community.

There is a more focused folk dance group called the New Mexico Folk Music and Dance Society, or FolkMADS, which specializes in contra dances and English country dances with live music. Having a live band is a real treat, and there are a few different bands that play for this group. Contras are partner dances that have many movements in common with square dancing, but the sets of 4 (or sometimes 6) are arranged in long lines, or reels, and partners progress up and down the line, so you get to dance with just about everyone in the room. They walk through every dance before doing it, and there is a caller to shout out what comes next. You don't have to have a partner with you; you can dance with whoever is there, and this group is very well attended. (I would go more often, but my calendar just won't hold everything I want to do!) They typically dance in Albuquerque on the first and third Saturdays and the second Sunday of each month at 7:00 p.m. at the Heights Community Center, with the Saturday nights starting with half an hour of basic instruction. This group has a membership option and is just a wee bit more expensive: $8 per night, or $7 for members. I'm not a member of the group, but I've been to a few of their dances and it's great fun.

And this is just international folk dance. There are many, many other dance venues and styles in Duke City. If you want to dance, there are more opportunities than you can shake a stick at. I encourage anyone who is interested to check out the beginner's class at AIFDF in the coming weeks. This activity exposes you to new cultures as well as getting your heart pumping. Visit the entire world without leaving town!

Just finished reading a delightful book: "Gods Behaving Badly" by Marie Phillips, from London.  The Olympian gods live in a dilapidated house in modern London, as they themselves diminish due to everyone's lack of belief in them.  The hijinks are hilarious: Artemis is a professional dog walker; she finds a tree that is actually a person who had refused a sexual advance from Apollo.  Aphrodite is a phone sex operator; plays a prank on Apollo (a TV psychic with an enormous ego) by having her son, Eros (Cupid), shoot him with one of his love darts, only Eros has become a Christian and keeps asking himself, "What would Jesus do?"  It's pure fun.  Two mortals are introduced into the story (and I identify with the guy, Neil, very well), and end up sort of reenacting the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, only with a happy ending.  The author states the ludicrous with a deadpan style that made me laugh aloud many times.