A History of Toronto Contra Dance
from a Music Perspecitve
By Stephen Fuller – January 2008
The success of the Toronto Country Dancers (now known as Toronto Contra Dance) is due in large part to the musicians who played for the dance over the years. This is a small look at that history, to honour some of those musicians. You will have to excuse the inexact nature of the timeline since no one was really keeping track.
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In the first years of the dance there were not a lot of musicians involved with the dance. Anne Lederman and Ian Bell played for some and Kathy Reid and Arnie Naiman (Extraordinary String Band) played quite a bit but neither of them could commit to the dance on a regular basis.
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In 1984-85, Stephen Fuller along with Ken Brown were introduced to the dance through Don Bell and Eldon Cooper, then involved in the dance revival centered around English Country Dance that was led by David and Catherine Gallop in Peterborough, Tom Siess in London, Eldon Cooper in Simcoe, and others. They started playing on a regular basis for the English dance and were soon introduced to the ‘new’ contra dance scene. This led to a long association with the dance.
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Stephen and Ken, along with Paul Morris, started playing on a regular basis for the Toronto dance under the name ‘City Works’. This association lasted a short while until Ken left the group. The name of the group then changed to ‘Back Up And Push’ and continued playing as the house band for the dance as well as providing the sound system for the hall, hauling it in and out of the back door of St. George each dance.
At this point the band became a bit of an open group and several people sat in. John Davies joined as a regular member on guitar and later Laurel Arbuckle came in on bass. After a while Paul left the group. Other people came out – Skye Sweet on flute, Vicky Obedkoff and several others sitting in occasionally on piano, Vivian sitting in on Bodhran, and others I’m sure who I do not remember well enough
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The house band continued in that fashion into the 1990’s. The ‘90’s was also the time when callers workshops were started to develop local interest in calling.
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Bev Bernbaum and Tom Calwell emerged out of those as regular callers and others stayed on with occasional interest in calling. The dance had started doing weekend events and had a weekend with Wild Asparagus in October ’91. That seemed like a turning point from which the dance grew steadily larger. By 1993 the dance had built up enough that there was money in the bank to start hiring out of town bands and callers. 'Back up and Push' remained active but as part of a more varied schedule. Bands started coming in from the US and more local Toronto musicians became involved.
Although discussions started in 1989 about buying a sound system for the dance, it was not until 1999 that there was enough money and necessity to actually buy a system, not too long before the dance had to relocate to Holy Trinity. Till then sound continued to be provided by Stephen Fuller.
With the move to Holy Trinity, the era of the house band came to an end. Back Up and Push continued on for a while with a new guitar player, Johnathan Earp, but when that association ended the band name ‘Back Up And Push’, came to an end. Stephen Fuller continues whenever possible to play, with various musicians, for the dance and helps out with sound and set up. The dance moves on and becomes larger and more diverse and hopefully will continue for a long time yet as new people become involved in running and playing for the event.
When the music and the dance become as one
all the hard work melts away.
A History of Toronto Contra Dance
from an Organizational Perspecitve
circa, January 2008
Long before the Toronto Country Dancers (now known as Toronto Contra Dance) were conceived, the first country dance workshop was held at
Fiddler's Green Coffee House. Cathy Schmidt writes,
 Kathy Reid-Naiman Photo Steven Nagy |
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I think it was on a Sunday afternoon (probably in the fall of 1975), and it was organized by Kathy Reid and myself. Kathy and I both taught/called some contra and English dances, with Tam Kearney teaching a few Scottish dances and Stan Dueck doing some squares. I don't remember who was playing in the band, but I'm sure we had live music. There was such a good turnout for that first dance that we decided to try a regular series. I believe it was monthly, and we met at First Unitarian Church. Kathy Reid, Stan Dueck, Tam Kearney, Margot Kearney and I taught and called the dances. That was the winter of 1976. |
Shortly after that, the dances moved to St. George the Martyr Anglican Church where they remained until 1981. At that time the church closed the hall for renovations. Kathy Reid tried a couple of other venues but was unable to get out the numbers needed to sustain the dance, and it folded.
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Shelly, Lorraine, Judy Photo Steven Nagy |
In 1982, The Mariposa Folk Foundation held the first ever Mariposa in the Woods - now The Woods Music and Dance Camp. Three of the 100 or so people that attended were Judy Greenhill, Lorraine Sutton and Shelly Romalis. They had such a wonderful time dancing that week that they decided to start their own series, holding the first “Mariposa Country Dance” in January 1983. The dance was held at the newly renovated St. George the Martyr, where it continued until January 2002.
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In 1993, as connections with the Mariposa Folk Foundation changed, the group renamed itself "Toronto Country Dancers.
In the summer of 2001, we were informed that we would need to leave St. George the Martyr, as the church needed the space for a full time group. In January 2002, TCD moved to The Holy Trinity Anglican Church by the Eaton Centre, then in 2004, moved to its present home, St. Barnabas Anglican Church Hall on Hampton Avenue.
This makes our January 2008 dance the 25th Anniversary of the “reorganized” Toronto Country Dancers.
