Thursday Night Contra Dance in the Mt. Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia, PA 19119

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Feb. 6	Dan Black	Dr. Twamley's Audio Snakes - Mike Rovine (fiddle), Jill Smith (piano), Wes Steenson (guitar, banjo) A community meeting about the upcoming vote on role terms will be held before the dance, at 7 pm. This is also the last day to become a PATMAD member or renew your membership, to be eligible to vote in March. Membership is free; you must apply or renew in person at the dance. You can be on the email list without being a PATMAD member.
Feb. 13	Jan Alter	Raise the Roof - Mat Clark (fiddle), Bob Pasquarello (bass), Judi Stellar (hammered dulcimer), Kathy Talvitie (guitar) Come dressed for Valentine's Day or Anti-Valentine's-Day (or come as you are)!
Saturday Feb. 15	Sue Gola	Pieces of Eight
Feb. 20	Anne Lutun	Ben Kennedy (piano), Colin Smith (fiddle, mandolin), Stephen Stanislaw (guitar, bando), Peter Subramanian (fiddle, mandolin), Addyson Teal (fiddle, mandolin) Larks and Robins will be called for this dance.
Feb. 27	Sue Gola	ACED - Adlai Waksman (keyboard), Carol Carpenter (flute, piccolo), Doug Healy (guitar, percussion, mandolin), Enid Diamante (fiddle)

(Continued in the 2020 calendar)

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We dance every Thursday night (except Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve) in Mt. Airy at the Commodore Barry Club, 6815 Emlen Street, Philadelphia, PA 19119 (directions). The Third Saturday Contra Dance is at Summit Church, also in Mt. Airy. We thank the staff of Glenside Memorial Hall for supporting our dances for nearly 20 years.

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Sliding Scale Admission

We offer admission to our Thursday night dance on a $15-$5 sliding scale *($20-$8 for touring bands).
Some guidelines to help you decide how much to pay:

Local bands	*Touring bands
$15	$20	Dance supporter - you make it possible for others to come to our dance. Thank you!
$10	$12	Dance sustainer - you make our dance sustainable by paying enough to help us meet our costs.
$5	$8	Basic admission - on a tight budget? You too are a valued member of our community. We're happy you're coming to dance!

No one is turned away for lack of funds. Ask us about work grants.

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Larks and Ravens

As part of our mission to make contra dancing accessible to anyone who wants to dance, we are experimenting with non-gendered dance role terms. On selected evenings, dances will be called using the terms
"Larks" (for the dancers generally on the left, traditionally the "gents") and
"Ravens" (or sometimes "Robins", for the dancers generally on the right, traditionally the "ladies").

At every dance, whether Gents/Ladies or Larks/Ravens, we encourage you to dance whichever role(s) you like, and to dance with whoever is coming at you!

Role Terms Taskforce and Round Table Discussions

The Role Terms Taskforce is working to guide discussion and identify options for the future. The Taskforce has hosted round table discussions where community members could learn about, discuss and contribute to the decision about the role terms to be used at our dance. Two discussions took place on October 10 and 24 before the dance. The Taskforce has also sent out a community survey.

If you wish to express your views but were unable to attend either session, please and let us know when and how you would like to participate.

(Read more about the Role Terms Taskforce, including a timeline, reasons why and why not to change, discussion and dancers' comments, and the membership vote in March.)

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Tell your friends!

If this is your first time, WELCOME! 
"If you can walk and count to 4, you can contra dance!"

Not your first time? Bring your friends and let them too discover the joy, energy, swirling awesomeness, and just plain fun of contra dancing!

As contra dancers, we need to always be recruiting in order to grow our dance and have more fun. Now is the time to start talking to that friend who you think would love to dance with us.

The best way to get people to try something new is to personally ask them: share your love for dancing, bring them early, teach them how to swing, et cetera. The more we grow our dance, the more fun we can all have. Who will you recruit? Will it be someone from work? Someone from your place of worship? Someone from your knitting group or Zumba class? A stranger on the street?

See you and your new dancer friends soon!

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