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New England Folk Festival
The New England Folk Festival is an annual weekend festival of traditional dance and music. It takes place in the Boston, Massachusetts region each spring. It is conducted by the New England Folk Festival Association. Both the festival and the association are colloquially known by the abbreviation NEFFA. NEFFA is a participatory festival; attendees are encouraged to participate in dancing, singing, musical jam sessions, and other activities. It is run by volunteers and all the performers are volunteers as well. The festival and the association has introduced thousands of New England and Massachusetts residents to the varied communities of traditional social and folk dance and folk music for more than 60 years, especially celebrating the living traditions of folk music and dance traditional to New England. Numerous New England folk dance callers, leaders and musicians have had formative experiences at the festival, and in turn have inspired and influenced thousands more through the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 census, making it the second- most populous city in New England after Boston. Worcester is approximately west of Boston, east of Springfield and north-northwest of Providence. Due to its location near the geographic center of Massachusetts, Worcester is known as the "Heart of the Commonwealth"; a heart is the official symbol of the city. Worcester developed as an industrial city in the 19th century due to the Blackstone Canal and rail transport, producing machinery, textiles and wire. Large numbers of European immigrants made up the city's growing population. However, the city's manufacturing base waned following World War II. Long-term economic and population decline was not reversed until the 1990s, when higher education, medicine, biotechnology, and new immigrants started to make their mark. The city' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rapper Sword
Rapper sword (also known as short sword dance) is a variation of sword dance unique to Northumberland and County Durham. It emerged from the pit villages of Tyneside and Wearside, where miners first performed the tradition. The dance requires five performers who co-ordinate themselves while using "rapper swords" made from flexible steel. Accompanied by traditional folk music, the dancers wear hard-soled shoes that allow for percussive foot movements. Mental alertness, in addition to physical agility, is required in order for dance participants to use the swords effectively without causing harm to themselves or the other performers. History Whilst substantial evidence for the origins of the rapper sword tradition does not exist, as of 2012, since the publication of ''Rapper; The miner's Dance of North East England'' by Phil Heaton it is generally accepted that the dance was originally performed in the mining villages of the Northumberland and Durham coalfield in North-East ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Morris Dance
Morris dancing is a form of English folk dance. It is based on rhythmic stepping and the execution of choreographed figures by a group of dancers, usually wearing bell pads on their shins. Implements such as sticks, swords and handkerchiefs may also be wielded by the dancers. In a small number of dances for one or two people, steps are near and across a pair of clay tobacco pipes laid one across the other on the floor. They clap their sticks, swords, or handkerchiefs together to match with the dance. The earliest known and surviving English written mention of Morris dance is dated to 1448 and records the payment of seven shillings to Morris dancers by the Goldsmiths' Company in London. Further mentions of Morris dancing occur in the late 15th century, and there are also early records such as bishops' "Visitation Articles" mentioning sword dancing, guising and other dancing activities, as well as mumming plays. While the earliest records invariably mention "Morys" in a court s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Country Dance
A country dance is any of a very large number of social dances of a type that originated in the British Isles; it is the repeated execution of a predefined sequence of figures, carefully designed to fit a fixed length of music, performed by a group of people, usually in couples, in one or more sets. The figures involve interaction with your partner and/or with other dancers, usually with a progression so that you dance with everyone in your set. It is common in modern times to have a "caller" who teaches the dance and then calls the figures as you dance. Country dances are done in many different styles. As a musical form written in or time, the contredanse was used by Beethoven and Mozart. Introduced to South America by French immigrants, Country Dance had great influence upon Latin American music as contradanza. The ''Anglais'' (from the French word meaning "English") or ''Angloise'' is another term for the English country dance. A Scottish country dance may be termed an . ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Folk Dance
International folk dance includes Balkan dance, Middle Eastern dance, contra dance, Hungarian dance, polka, Chinese dance, and Japanese dance. Clubs featuring these ethnic dance genres are enjoyed by non-professional dancers for entertainment. Many clubs that use collections of ethnic folk dances will use the term "international folk dance" or similar in their name. History International folk dance developed in the immigrant communities of the United States of America during the first half of the 20th century. Traditional dances such as branles, polkas, quadrilles and others have been done internationally for hundreds of years; however, the creation of international folk dance as such is often attributed to Vytautas Beliajus, a Lithuanian-American who studied, taught, and performed dances from various ethnic traditions in the 1930s. Also, in the mid 1930s, Scandinavian dancing began to take hold in non-Scandinavian communities. Clubs began to form around this style. A pio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
COVID-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified in an outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019. Attempts to contain it there failed, allowing the virus to spread to other areas of Asia and later worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on 30 January 2020, and a pandemic on 11 March 2020. As of , the pandemic had caused more than cases and confirmed deaths, making it one of the deadliest in history. COVID-19 symptoms range from undetectable to deadly, but most commonly include fever, dry cough, and fatigue. Severe illness is more likely in elderly patients and those with certain underlying medical conditions. COVID-19 transmits when people breathe in air contaminated by droplets ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mansfield, Massachusetts
Mansfield is a town in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the United States 2020 Census, the town population is 23,860. Mansfield is in the south-southwest suburbs of Boston and is also close to Providence, Rhode Island. The village of Mansfield Center is located in the town. The town is twinned with Mansfield in Nottinghamshire, England. History The area to become Mansfield was first scouted in 1640 by Captain Miles Standish, settled in 1658 and was officially incorporated in 1775. It was named for William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, a pro-colonial member of the House of Lords. Mansfield is the home of the Xfinity Center (formerly known as Great Woods, Tweeter Center and Comcast Center) concert venue, one of the most popular in New England. It is also the birthplace of Honey Dew Donuts, a regional New England chain of donut shops. The first Honey Dew was opened at 221 North Main Street on June 6, 1973. Benjamin E. Bates, an industrialist and philanthrop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natick, Massachusetts
Natick ( ) is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is near the center of the MetroWest region of Massachusetts, with a population of 37,006 at the 2020 census. west of Boston, Natick is part of the Greater Boston area. Massachusetts's center of population was in Natick at the censuses of 2000-2020, most recently in the vicinity of Hunters Lane. Name The name ''Natick'' comes from the language of the Massachusett Native American tribe and is commonly thought to mean "Place of Hills." A more accurate translation may be "place of ursearching," after John Eliot's successful search for a location for his Praying Indian settlement. History Natick was settled in 1651 by John Eliot, a Puritan missionary born in Widford, England, who received a commission and funds from England's Long Parliament to settle the Massachusett Indians called Praying Indians on both sides of the Charles River, on land deeded from the settlement at Dedham. Natick was the first of E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natick High School
Natick High School is an urban/suburban public high school serving students in grades 9 to 12 in Natick, Massachusetts, United States. The school is located on the banks of Dug Pond. Its enrollment was 1,603 students during the 2015–2016 school year. The original building was built in 1953 at approximately . and opened in 1954. The building was expanded in 1965 (additional 94,000 sq ft.). Additional renovations took place in 1985. In 2010, the town voted to replace the Natick High School building. The new facility was constructed on the fields immediately to the south of the former building. Demolition on the former building began on June 25, 2012. The new building design is based on a model approved by the state of Massachusetts. This was necessary in order to maximize state reimbursement for design and construction; it cost $78 million. The new high school opened to students on August 29, 2012. The arts at Natick High * Natick High School Theater produces two full-length plays ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lowell, Massachusetts
Lowell () is a city in Massachusetts, in the United States. Alongside Cambridge, It is one of two traditional seats of Middlesex County. With an estimated population of 115,554 in 2020, it was the fifth most populous city in Massachusetts as of the last census, and the third most populous in the Boston metropolitan statistical area. The city also is part of a smaller Massachusetts statistical area, called Greater Lowell, and of New England's Merrimack Valley region. Incorporated in 1826 to serve as a mill town, Lowell was named after Francis Cabot Lowell, a local figure in the Industrial Revolution. The city became known as the cradle of the American Industrial Revolution because of its textile mills and factories. Many of Lowell's historic manufacturing sites were later preserved by the National Park Service to create Lowell National Historical Park. During the Cambodian genocide (1975–1979), the city took in an influx of refugees, leading to a Cambodia Town and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brockton, Massachusetts
Brockton is a city in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States; the population is 105,643 as of the 2020 United States Census. Along with Plymouth, it is one of the two county seats of Plymouth County. It is the sixth-largest city in Massachusetts and is sometimes referred to as the "City of Champions", due to the success of native boxers Rocky Marciano and Marvin Hagler, as well as its successful Brockton High School sports programs. Two villages within it are Montello and Campello, both of which have MBTA Commuter Rail Stations and post offices. Campello is the smallest neighborhood, but also the most populous. Brockton hosts a baseball team, the Brockton Rox. It is the second-windiest city in the United States, with an average wind speed of . History In 1649, Ousamequin (Massasoit) sold the surrounding land, then known as Saughtucket, to Myles Standish as an addition to Duxbury. Brockton was part of this area, which the English renamed Bridgewater. On June 15, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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