Traditional Music and Dance 👞🎻
Building Community
Cultivating Well-Being
People of all backgrounds and identities WELCOME
Midcoast Maine 🌲
Belfast Flying Shoes is a 501c3 nonprofit founded in 2005 We achieve our mission by producing a variety of programs in our region, including community programming and a monthly dance series (on hold because of Covid). Our programming includes:
-School residenci
es where we use traditional participatory social dance and music to build community among students, staff, and families in PreK-12 schools. We also provide resources for educators, including repertoire, mentoring, and an annotated bibliography of dance-related children’s books.
-Community Programming which includes music and dance sessions for older adults, for residents at the ME Coastal Regional Reentry Center, for mentors and staff at the Restorative Justice Project, and more!
-Special dances, which in the past have included Dancing in the Park (free outdoor series); Beatles Contra; {put your} Hoe Down square dance; weekly contra classes; English country dance; and more!
-Workshops for contra and ECD musicians; Workshops for callers; Period dances for the Game Loft and for a Regency Ball; and more! Our monthly dance included three parts:
-The community dance, consisting of fun and simple dances, such as those presented at weddings or schools. Music by the All-Comers Band, led by a core ensemble and open to all musicians. New dancers, experienced dancers, families, and musicians all collaborate to create the event.
-The social break, which is a sociable half-hour between the Community and Contra dances, with emphasis on strengthening community connections through shared conversation.
-The contra dance which is zesty dances and tunes in a program of contras and squares presented by a variety of talented callers and musicians, especially touring performers. Expectations for this particular thread are colored by committee members’ collective experiences in other exciting dance communities.