Adam Boyce

The Arts

Fiddler Adam Boyce to give presentation on
Vermont's contra and square dance tradition

NEWFANE—Fiddler Adam Boyce, a tenth-generation Vermonter, presents “Sprightly Steps: Vermont’s Contra and Square Dancing Tradition,” a Vermont Humanities Council program, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 7 p.m., at the Moore Free Library, 23 West St., Newfane.

The program is free and open to all.

“Every town has some sort of dance history,” Boyce says. “Although early settlers frowned upon the merriment of dancing and fiddle playing as ’works of the devil,’ the tradition found its way to the Green Mountains.

“From fancy balls or cotillions to kitchen junkets or ’tunks,’ people of all ages and backgrounds fell victim to the strains of the fiddle upon their souls."

Changes in culture and music have made old time dancing nearly extinct, but a few practitioners are keeping the old styles alive.

Some live fiddling and a sample of Eastern style square dance calling accompanies this lecture, which is approximately one hour long.

Boyce first became involved with traditional dancing and fiddling in 1991. He is an Eastern style square dance caller who fiddles and calls simultaneously. In addition, he plays piano backup for other fiddlers throughout Vermont and New Hampshire.

Boyce is a member of the Ed Larkin Contra Dancers, a dance preservation group that performs annually at the Tunbridge World’s Fair, among other venues, demonstrating traditional old time contra dances and quadrilles.

 Boyce has been involved with nearly every aspect of fiddle contests in New England since 1994, including judge, piano backup, and competitor.

He was the 2000 Vermont division champion at the Northeast Fiddlers contest in Barre, Vermont, and has placed in nearly every New England state.

Boyce is a juried artist with the Vermont Arts Council, specializing in Yankee humor, in the tradition of Francis Colburn, Allen Foley, and others.

•  Adam Boyce