Arts & Humanities
Friday Night Folk - Jim Laffrey

Dancing Bob bounds off the creaky hardwood floor to the corner where sound equipment and cassette tapes await. But instead of changing tapes to start another folk tune, Bob yanks up his sweat-soaked mauve T-shirt, baring his belly. Then, he pulls the shirt off, past his gray beard and over his bald head. A handful of female folkers burst into applause.
  "Finally!" says Joyce, a slender, veteran folk dancer. She laughs and turns to me, a new guy in the friendly group, and explains, "We've been trying for years to get Bob to change his shirt." Joyce sees my quizzical look and adds, "He gets so wet, none of us women want to touch him." She strikes a pose as if she's in a ballroom hold with Bob and says, "We do this," and she points her index fingers out from her fists to show that only the tips of the two fingers touch his damp shoulders.
  The second-floor studio at Third and Bluff streets in Marquette is alive with chuckles and chatter as a smiling Bob whisks on a fresh, candy-striped pullover and inserts a different tape in his player. He clicks a button, and violins and accordions launch into a lively East European "mixer"—a couples' dance during which everyone changes partners frequently. Bob wipes his forehead with his sleeve. Then he stops the tape and announces the name of the dance. Most of the group members don't recognize the name—which is two or three words of a foreign language—nor do they make any effort to memorize it. They recognize the dance by the music. Bob's pick of the mixer takes advantage of this peak time of the night, near nine o'clock, when the room is full and his fellow folkers' energy has yet to crest. "Big circle. Boy-girl-boy-girl," Bob yells, to encourage both veterans and beginners to get into position.

Twenty-five local folks, ages twenty-six to sixty-nine, circle up and join hands. The scuffed, hard-maple floorboards of the thirty-five- by forty-foot surface flex under shifting, eager feet. Above, six fluorescent tubes glow down as mid-summer daylight wanes through the four pushed-up windows in the west and north walls. The other two walls are painted creamy white above green baseboards, highly decorated with martial-arts graphics. There are woven belts of white, yellow, green, brown and black, and framed photos of accomplished practitioners in action. This top-floor gym usually hosts Tae Kwon Do; but not tonight. Not ever on Friday night. No need to block a kick or thrust a punch. It's the Marquette Folk Dancers' weekly night of fun.
  Bob presses "play" and steps into a gap left for him by Joyce and his wife, Yvonne. "Two-steps left for four measures, then right four measures, then arm-right your partner," Bob says quickly, to help the newbies and the forgetful get off on the right foot. His instructions blew right by me. Yvonne sees my scrunched brow. As accordions and a bass violin leap into the intro, Yvonne says across the circle to me, "I think you did this one last week." Joyce nods reassuringly. Bob adds, "We'll get you through it." Suddenly, the circle starts turning clockwise. Louise, who's holding my left hand, pulls me behind her. I fall into step, focusing on her feet to pick up the rhythm.
  While dancing, Louise constantly beams her contagious grin, and she knows why. "All the obvious reasons," she later tells me. "It's fun. It's good exercise. It's relaxing. But mainly—this is kind of a selfish reason— but it's the one night I give myself each week to get out and socialize, you know?"
  As I'm watching her feet, Louise is offering directions to Peter, another novice dancer, in front of her. Louise instructs: "Left-two-three. Right-two-three. Left. No, your other left!" She giggles. And a half-dozen others, including Peter, laugh. It's her weekly line—old enough to be new again.
  The circle changes direction. A couple of people stumble. A few chuckle. Everybody smiles. Then, the ring breaks into twos. Men hook right elbows with the women on their right. Each pair turns clockwise one revolution. Immediately, they change elbows, and turn counterclockwise one revolution. Bob calls out, "Step-hops through a grand left-right." Now, the dancers appear to be skipping, so I skip, too. The men are going to their right while the women are going left. We have two large circles, interwoven, spinning in opposite directions.
  The melody suddenly mutates, and the circles break into couples again. Marge hooks elbows with her new partner, who happens to be her husband, Bill. They love to dance, doing it three or four nights a week despite painful knees.
  A few years ago, Marge started a splinter group, the Northern Michigan University International Folk Dancers. With a membership mostly borrowed from Bob's group, the NMU dancers meet every Tuesday on campus. About ten dancers remain members of both groups, happy with the doubled days for dance. Marge directs the Tuesday group toward more women's dances and line dances. Bob's group, which was born in the 1960s and rejuvenated by Bob's leadership beginning in the 1970s, features more vigorous dances and boasts a repertoire weighted with squares, circles and mixers.
  One of the members of both groups is Cathy. She's tall and a fluid dancer. She's also a watercolorist, and she says folk dancing gives her artistic essence a "physical outlet" that painting does not provide. Cathy is one of the eight to ten dancers who regularly volunteer to perform at events arranged by Bob. Her white T-shirt says "Marquette Folk Dancers" on the front and is tucked into a flowing floral skirt. She is joined at the elbow, for the moment, with Warren. When Warren knows a dance well enough that he doesn't have to concentrate on his feet, he's quick to converse.
  He says, "Whew, it's a hot night, eh Cathy?"
  "It sure is," she replies, "I think I'm going to melt to a puddle."
  Soon the mixer ends, and several panting people congregate in a corner in front of a whirling, white fan on a stand. Others head past the sound equipment and into the hallway to take turns at a water fountain. At the tape machine, Yvonne says to Bob, "How about a slow one? Some of us are getting overheated." Bob would rather keep the energetic pace, but he nods and reaches for his cassette of a Macedonian line dance. This is typical of him. He aims to please. Without complaint, he does what it takes—even behind the scenes.
  For example, earlier in the evening, Bob arrived first, and alone, as usual. He climbed the wide, steep wooden stairs to the second floor. At the top, he turned into a cramped locker room where he stores his cassette tapes and sound equipment. In solitude, he carried the equipment out of the locker room to the table in the corner of the adjacent studio. He arranged his tapes, hooked up his speakers. He put out a cardboard box with a sign on it, "$1.50 per person," indicating not an admission price— there is none—but a suggested donation toward the rent on the room. Then Bob opened some windows. He set fans on sills to the attic-like heat from the dance room, and a stand fan to blow across the large, space. He posted a schedule of the group's two upcoming performances—a wedding reception and the group's annual dance across the Mackinac Bridge on Labor Day. Next to the schedule, he put up a list of dances chosen for the wedding event accompanied by a sign-up sheet for volunteer performers. He had made the necessary phone calls, mailed the required forms, and typed the postings himself.
  By the time other dancers began to top the stairs, Bob was sitting on a worn wooden chair in the hall, his folk music softly rebounding off the high ceilings. He doffed his sandals and donned dark socks, and he lovingly slid into his dancing shoes. The black shoes, a lot like high-top basketball boots but slimmer, sport a special section of sole in front—less grippy, to allow graceful, squeakless pivots. Then, he wrapped his knees with flexible braces secured with attached Velcro straps. Similarly, the night would end the way it began. He's always the last out. After warmly refusing any offer of help—"Even from me," Yvonne told me—he packs up all the accoutrements and clicks off the lights.
  But right now, as Bob stands dripping next to his tape player and the Macedonian line dance begins to play, Melissa steps to center stage to take the lead. She's light on her feet, but it's hard to see her footwork because she's wearing a long, rippled, rainbow-colored skirt. She and a string of fourteen folkers are crossing left feet in front of rights as they begin a "grapevine" step. Almost all the lefts are moving in unison.
  Taking a break near the fan in the corner, Renee and husband Steve settle onto a large, cylindrical punching bag lying on the floor against a wall. Steve pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and pats his creased brow. Renee, leans down to her left. She coos, "Sara," as if affectionately addressing a child. A white, Toto-like pooch instantly leaps from her obediently prone position on her personal rug and lands on Renee's lap. The four-legger is a minor celebrity in the Marquette area, having been on TV and in newspaper stories, wowing people with tricks or, when sheared, looking like the runt in Taco Bell commercials. One thing Sara does not do, however, is dance, but she seems to like to watch.
  Out on the floor, Hal is holding Melissa's hand. He looks comfortable with both the heat and the current steps. The Macedonian music lasts another minute, with its odd rhythm and hauntingly beautiful Slavic vocals. On the final beat, the dancers lift their right knees in the air and momentarily hold the pose.
  Bob asks, "Who's up for Schuhplattler?"
  Yvonne laughs. Steve asserts, "No way! Too hot!" The others who know the raucous Austrian dance of jumps, kicks and claps agree with Steve.
  "Ha ha. Okay," Bob says, bouncing on his well-muscled legs and now warm and eager knees. "Then, how ‘bout a square?"
  "A sedate square," one of the women requests, earning a few chuckles.
  Bob notices several people changing back into their street shoes. Group members and visitors can leave whenever they please. Few stay from start to finish, anyway, and tonight's heat is taking its toll on the weak and those who fear their deodorant will let them down. Fearless Bob selects the next tune, cues it up and steps to his place on the floor, joined by Hal and Jack. Jack is at home in this studio. Until recently, he was the lead martial-arts instructor in the facility, until a knee-mangling skiing accident forced him to hang up his black belt. However, his recovery has progressed enough to allow him to dance—carefully. Louise moves in to be Jack's partner. Bob looks at me. Being a rookie—this is only my third night with the Friday group—I'm hesitant to volunteer to be the fourth man. With a flourish, Bob nods repeatedly at me and waves me into position. I like that. If I screw up the dance for everyone, I have the leader to share in the blame. My presence completes the male slots for the square. But three of the four female slots stand empty.
  "We need some women out here," Bob prods.
  Hal beckons Joyce, and she agrees to join him. Yvonne falls in next to Bob.
  "Karen," Bob calls, to another dancer engaged in a chat by a fan. "You know this one."
  Karen replies, "I do?"
  "Yeah. Yeah. Come on."
  "Well, okay. What is it?"
  "Newcastle."
  "Oh! Newcastle! Good," Karen says, her cuteness magnified by joy. The old English dance is one of the few she knows by title— thanks to the English name. "It's one of my favorites."
  Throughout the evening, any dancer can request one of their favorites and Bob would be sure to play it. But few of the folkers make requests. Usually, they let Bob run the show, deftly mixing easy dances among advanced ones and keeping as many people active and happy as possible.
  The eight of us ready to perform Newcastle form a circle and join hands. Accordions, violins, bass and a drum begin a bouncy British melody. Bob says, "Four steps in, then out, then set your partner and corner." Suddenly, our human circle shrinks inward. After four beats, everybody gives a kick into the middle. Those who got started on the right foot kick with their left. One kicks with his "other" left. And everybody smiles.
—Jim Laffrey

Author's note: The Marquette Folk Dancers meet every Friday, 8-11 p.m., in the second-floor studio at Third and Bluff streets. No partners or experience necessary. Visitors welcome. For more information call Bob at 226-9617.