Rockland

Contra Dance

Our first dance in this series was Sunday, October 11th, 2009 with Chrissy Fowler calling, and music by Hope Hoffman (fiddle & viola) and Abraham Stimson (piano & fiddle)

Link to upcoming contra dance dates for 2010

Abraham Stimson has been playing New England fiddle music and traditional Irish music since his early childhood, and plays fiddle, piano and bass in the bands Playgroup, Callithump and Flowing Tide, and in ensembles with local musicians in Maine and Vermont including Tamora Goltz, Alden Robinson and David Stimson.

Hope Hoffman has worked full-time as a freelance performer and teacher since 1999. Her musical style is noted for its evocative beauty and rough-and-tumble playfulness, with influences including the elder generation of Maine dance fiddlers and early music. Hope teaches violin/fiddle for adults and for children ages 3 and older, in downtown Rockland and at Free Grange Music Studio in Bowdoinham.

Longtime Maine fiddler Greg Boardman described Hope's CD of live, original dance compositions as "Pure New England fiddle music, proud of its rural past, relishing the present ... inviting, warm, energized and straight ahead, with a bit of mischief thrown in."

Audio samples of Hope and Abraham practicing for the dance:

Banks of Inverness
(trad. polka)

Liza Jane/Anything for John Joe
(trad. reels)

Green Apples
(original polka
composed by Hope)

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