Morristown Folkdancers

Morristown Folkdancers is one of the oldest groups in NJ, and we're still going strong. Come join us!

Our repertoire draws from the dance traditions of Eastern and Western Europe, the Balkans, Israel, Greece, Turkey, Russia, England and Scotland. Partners are not needed.

As we come out(?) of the pandemic, we are currently meeting both in-person and as virtual dance sessions on zoom.

The in-person dancing is every Wednesday evening, 7:30 to 11 pm Eastern Time. All are welcome! (but you have to be fully vaccinated.) COVID Policy re masking is below. The in-person sessions are livestreamed: tinyurl.com/MFDlive

The virtual dance parties are hosted by the Spiegels, with guest leaders from the MFD community. They occur twice a month on Monday evenings, 7:30 to 10 pm Eastern Time.   !!Send us your requests!!

Link to the virtual dance party: tinyurl.com/MFDparties All are welcome!

MFD COVID Policy for In-Person Dance nights:

If you are vaccinated and boosted, masks are now optional but strongly recommended, especially if you are immuno-compromised.
Anyone who is not vaccinated and boosted, must wear a mask.
If you feel sick, please stay home. You are welcome to participate via Zoom.
If you test positive within a week of attending a dance session, even if you are certain that you caught it elsewhere, please let Murray know. (His contact info is at bottom of page.) He will send out a confidential alert to the group so that people can monitor their own health.

Our pre-pandemic web content:

We meet every Wednesday night, all year 'round.

During the "school year," we especially welcome beginners with a basics session, as announced. Teaching of more intermediate-level or advanced dances follows, with open dancing after that. See the detailed schedule below for meeting times and cost.

Our dancing home is the Mountain Lakes Community Church.
Here are directions as text and here is a nifty map.  This is Public transportation to and from NYC (only on the weekends).

Special events:
The first Wednesday of each month is party night, where we recognize our birthdays and anniversaries. Our annual dinner dance is in late spring, featuring a pot-luck meal of great delectables. The Wednesday closest to Halloween is costume night, where everyone brings horrorble snacks. During the year, we have workshops, featuring nationally famous choreographers.

Schedule:
7:30-8:15 pm: Open dancing
8:15-8:45 pm: Intermediate/Advanced teaching
8:45-11:00 pm: Open dancing
Summer Schedule: 8:00-11:00pm - no teaching (also, no intermediate teaching during Party Nights)

Cost:
Supporters: $8, others $10 (First-timers get their 1st visit free during regular dance evenings)

Stats:
MFD's most popular dances of 2023, and all years we've used the laptop (2004 to current year).
Morristown Folk Dancers exclusively uses Neil Rosen's MITPlayer for its programming needs. It's simply magnificent, with many special features for running folkdance sessions. Get it here!

Parties:

      MFD's 50th anniversary dinner dance!
More pics
      MFD's 40th anniversary party!
MFD's 35th anniversary party (Click picture for higher-resolution image)
Pictures from NJ's 6th Annual Folk Dance Fest in May 2014, hosted by Morristown Folk Dancers. 143 dancers, 5 states, from 11 groups - Wow! The pics are here.

NJ's First Folk Dance Fest in April 2009 was hosted by Morristown Folk Dancers. We had 102 dancers from 11 groups. The pics are here.

We put on special parties for Halloween, often using several versions of alternate music. Here is the playlist for our first all-alternate music Halloween party, which was held on Zoom. (Enjoyed by well over 230 people!) A tinyurl link to this list is tinyurl.com/mfdhalloween20

Honorees:
Every so often, we honor one of our long-time dancers. Sample(s) of memory books that have been scanned in:
Rebecca Levine (2018)

Committees:
We function as volunteers organized into an Executive Committe (aka the Board) and various committees, according to the committee responsibilities and functions shown here.

Contacts for further information:
973-787-4614, or 973-228-5966.
Or contact us via email:
Murray Spiegel - mspiegel{at sign here}perspectalabs.com
Helen - helenblum37{at sign here}gmail.com
Sally - sallybmartin{at sign here}yahoo.com

Here are MFD's recipe books:

Recipe book from MFD's Dinner Dance Parties Newest entries at top

Recipe book from MFD's International Cookie Party

Here are good resources with folk dance instructions:

Instructional videos from our own MFD group

Instructional videos from our YouTube channel

Andrew Carnie's folkdance instructions, with links to videos on the web

Calif folkdance federation's teacher contact list
Calif folkdance federation's list of dances for each teacher

Dick Oakes' PhantomRanch

Dance instructions from Evansville

Dancilla's dance instructions and videos

LOTS of Balkan, Greek, Turkish, Hungarian music and videos from Dunav, a non-profit group in Jerusalem

Bob Shapiro's list of dance notes

The Internet Archive (aka "The WayBack Machine") collection of out-of-print 78s and vinyl recordings of dances (hundreds of mp3s!)
The direct link for these is here: ia601403.us.archive.org/8/items/InternationalFolkDances. For each dance there are other files, but choose the mp3s.

Many great videos of Balkan, Israeli, etc ...

Great list of dance descriptions and resources

Thousands of mp3's on Dayton OH's site. Various directories under "mp3s"; list is contained in list.txt

Back to main Northern NJ dance page

Happy Dancing!

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