Deeper Reasons Behind our Dance Group

• To Provide Low-cost Family Enjoyment

The cost of $5 per person and $20 per family is, we feel, a very reasonable price for an evening out. There are many costs to organize and host the events we do. In practice we are much like a non-profit business with expenses to match. We are very thankful for the generosity of our regular attendees which makes our events possible.

• To Encourage Gentlemanly Chivalry and Lady-like Femininity

We would like to encourage people to consider these lost arts as something desirable we should practice today. Parents like their sons to learn how to treat a woman like a lady, and their daughters learn to act like a lady. Dances give an opportunity to teach some of the practical aspects of old-fashioned ettiquette, for example: the tradition of having the gentleman take the initiative in asking a lady to dance, instead of vice-versa.

• To Provide a Safe Setting for Meeting and Mixing

In my personal experience, some of the more conservative, Christian circles can tend to be gender segregated. Dancing, obviously, requires or at least requests that you dance with someone of the opposite gender. Learning as a young person how to have appropriate friendships with your brothers and sisters in Christ is important; and that’s what we would like to encourage in this safe setting, with no romantic interest implied.

• To Teach History

Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it! Just sixty years ago in America, dancing was a frequent, common and appropriate social mixer; one hundred years ago, dancing was still all of that, but it was also an art to be mastered. English Country Dancing became common in Elizabethan England, and spread to America with the colonists. At the time of the American Revolution, ECD was just as popular in certain parts of the thirteen colonies as it was in England. We love history, which is just one more reason to love ECD.

• To Provide Healthy Good Exercise.

We purposely try to find the more energetic dances, because the faster the dance is, the more fun it is! This is not to say our dances are impossibly athletic, but one night of ECD will give you a good workout.

• To Dance

Because we love it.

Granted, most of these goals of ours are subtle and may not even be noticed by attendees. We encourage parents to take hold of the teaching opportunities ECD offers to teach your children lasting life lessons.