The Music and 



By D. E. Lindstrom 



THOUSANDS of cars poured in and 

 rapidly took up the parking spaces around 

 the Illinois Memorial Stadium at the Uni- 

 versity of Illinois on the evening of Septem- 

 ber 4 as 25,000 people gathered in the west 

 stands to witness the first novelty band, square 

 dance, and folk dance festival held in connec- 

 tion with the Illinois Farm Sports Festival. 

 They came to see their own talent express the 

 type of fun-making entertainment which is 

 found in many rural communities in the State 

 of Illinois and to witness the WLS show which 

 reflects the type of entertainment enjoyed by 

 thousands of rural people. 



Two hundred and fifteen individuals, repre- 

 senting 24 groups in 12 counties of Illinois, 

 took part in the preliminaries and finals of 

 this outstanding feature of the Farm Sports 

 Festival. Champaign County alone sent in six 

 groups; Livingston County sent four; LaSalle, 

 DeKalb, and far-off Monroe County each sent 

 two. Novelty bands averaged four in num- 

 ber, square dances nine, and most folk dance 

 groups had sixteen people taking part. 



Just glance at these people as they come to 

 the stage door of the Auditorium during the 

 preliminaries. You are impressed with the 

 number of young people in these groups — 

 young people who are exuberant, happy, full 

 of anticipation, but ready to take defeat with 

 a smile. 



The judges rated the groups appearing in 

 the preliminaries in two classifications • — A 

 and B. The A classification groups performed 

 in the evening. 



The desire to participate in the evening per- 

 formance caused many of them to show anxi- 

 ous, serious faces when in the wings, but 

 when they appeared on the stage they were all 

 smiles, happy, and intense. Monroe County 

 wanted to come on first since they had their 

 Softball game to play. The girls of Monroe 

 County won that Softball game, becoming 

 champions. Their anxiety only added to, 

 rather than detracted from, the zest with which 

 they entered their folk dance and novelty 

 band features. 



LOGAN COUNTY TRIO 

 "They Rated A', Played Before 25,000.' 



Dance Festival 



LIVINGSTON COUNTY'S APPLE KNOCKERS 

 They knock knocked and the judges gave 'em the blue ribbon. 



The novelty bands were, to say the least, 

 novel. Music making instruments fashioned 

 out of pitchforks, washboards, and funnel and 

 hose, with costumes which would draw the 

 envy of circus clowns, were all a part of the 

 novelty bands, and yet they produced good 

 music. The Kentucky Apple-Knockers and 

 the Melody Mixers, both from Livingston 

 County, the Sunshine Boys from Logan Coun- 

 ty, and the Kentucky Hayseeds from Cham- 

 paign County were given the A rating and 

 appeared in the evening. The Hayseeds par- 

 ticularly typified the group you might find 

 in open country and rural communities playing 

 for dances all night. The novelty bands were 

 good in the preliminaries, but the four A 

 groups performing in the evening were knock- 

 outs. They made the audience roar. The 

 Kentucky Appleknockers from Livingston 

 County gained the most votes from the judges, 

 but the audience voted them all winners. 



A whirlwind from the country came in with 

 the square dancers. The LaSalle County group, 

 in full costume, with Wilbert Anderson call- 

 ing, set a psce that was hard to match. But 

 animation and gaiety characterized all square 

 dances. The Vermillion County group was so 

 animated that we were afraid the caller, Walter 

 Pate, who also danced, would drop from sheer 

 exhaustion before his five minutes were up. 

 Then the Macon County group with Tom 

 Emerick as caller, under the direction of Eve- 

 rett Brown, executed a beautiful and precise 

 dance in country costumes and gave the audi- 

 ence a chance to breathe again. These three, 

 with the Champaign County square dance 

 made up of young people under the direction 

 of Al Moore, were placed in the A group. 

 They had hard competition from The Whirl- 

 ing Eight, Charles Taylor's square dance group 

 from LaSalle County, and other groups. 



Going into the finals before these 25,000 

 people, these four A square dance groups dis- 

 played super-animation. The LaSalle County 

 group, with its beautiful costumes which for 



the ladies were old-fashioned hoop style skirts 

 and anklets and appropriate costumes for the 

 men, won the hearts of the audience. Wilbert 

 Anderson, caller, and Webster M. Setchell, 

 chairman of the group, can be proud of their 

 square dancers, and we hope they are called 

 on for entertainment in communities in LaSalle 

 County repeatedly. 



The outstanding individual square dance 

 performance, however, was that of the lady in 

 the Vermilion group in the black full-skirted 

 dress, whose whirling animation caught and 

 held the attention and admiration of the 

 audience. What was her name.' Ask Walter 

 Pate, the caller, or M. E. Richards, the chair- 

 man. The Vermilion County group was made 

 up of man and wife for each of the four 

 couples. 



Then came the folk dances, all in costumes, 

 closely copied from the European type, and all 

 done to the music of old country folk dance 

 tunes. Here especially, young people of the 

 ages of 16 to 30 prevailed. Two of the 

 groups chose the old English folk dance. 

 Waves of Tory, with its over and under, back 

 and forward, twisting and turning, in beauti- 

 ful precision with the cadence of the music. 

 Tazewell County used the old Polish folk 

 dance, Cshebogar, as did one or two of the B 

 Group. But Ford County, with Delmar Gur- 

 ley in charge, using its own adaptation of an 

 English folk dance, added animation to pre- 

 cision and highly colored costumes, and carried 

 away the honors of the evening performance. 



The folk dances, with their costumes and 

 their rhythmic presentations, were the most 

 picturesque, artful, and beautiful of the entire 

 evening's performance. Does this portend the 

 return to an expressive art engaged in by rural 

 communities and groups in the open country 

 — especially young people's groups? If 

 true, it drives home the belief that true art 

 often comes from and is imbedded deeply in 

 the rural community. 



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L A. A. RECORD 



