NIHS Newsletter - Week 23, 2025

Ice Cream Social & Dudley Laufman

Ice Cream Social

The New Ipswich Library held its annual ice cream social on June 7, 2025. It is a popular event, who doesn’t love ice cream?

Dudley Laufman

After we fueled up on ice cream the Library and Historical Society sponsored a talk from Dudley Laufman an American contra and barn dance caller and musician widely credited with helping spur the revival of contra in the 20th century.

NIHS President John Rosenfelder introduced Dudley

Dudley Laufman

Laufman attended his first dance as a boy while working at the Mistwold Farm in Fremont, New Hampshire in 1948. In 1959, he moved to Canterbury, New Hampshire. He was a founding member of the Canterbury Country Dance Orchestra in 1965.^[3]

He began calling and playing for dances, which became known as "Dudley Dances".^[4] At times, he was the only remaining callers of contra dances with live music.^[1] He worked to spread the tradition, which ultimately caught on and has since spread across the United States and internationally.

Beginning in 1978, Laufman started working with the New Hampshire Artists-in-the-Schools program, teaching contra dances to children.^[1]

Laufman is a recipient of a 2009 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.^[5]

SOURCE WIKIPEDIA

Rivkah Valley

Dudley played some tunes accompanied by his intern Rivkah. She talked about how she made her choice to pursue a musical career when she saw how much joy it brought to people.

Music

We didn’t dance but we did hear lots of music including this one to sing along with.

James Roger Diaries Entries - 1908

2^nd June (Tuesday)

Fair with cool NW wind moderating in evening. David harrowing in top field and ploughing in Jim Davis field in afternoon. I sowed two rows of beets in incubator field. Got pc from Hamish.

3^rd June 1908 (Wednesday)

Frost killed beans and injured some tomatoes. Warm after. David with W. Hardy ploughed part of Davis field in forenoon and we seeded and harrowed top field in afternoon. I bushed some of my early peas. I wrote brother Bob, and we went down to library in evening. Saw Principal Lewis and
Miss Wilbur and had a talk about Jim.

4^th June 1908 (Thursday)

Cloudy morning warm day. Wind W to North. I drove up with David to Club House in morning with his stock and brought home the wagon Mother and I cleaned brooders and bushed peas. I afternoon Jim and I rolled top field and sowed two rows of carrots in garden. Saw brambleberry in bloom for first time this year.

5^th June 1908 (Friday)

Fine day warm with cool NE to SE wind. David and G. Sargent at Club House painting. I walked up in the morning with D’s paint brush, and putty knife, then planted 7 rows of fodder corn and 2 rows of beans.

6^th June 1908 (Saturday)

Cool morning fair and warm wind SW to W. David and G. Sargent at Club House. Jim went to Greenville for grain and him and I seeded the patch behind Lowe’s garden. I cut and trimmed 3 lots. Wilson Ashley paid me 75 cents for cutting the Wilson and Bennet lots. Maggie cut off lilac blossoms, cinnamon rose in flower at back door. Also pink’s in cemetery. Got letter from Alice and Hamish.

7^th June 1908 (Sunday)

Warm and sunny. Mr. Burnet of Brookline preached from Joshua 4-23. S.S. after Mr. B. leader. C.E. Mrs. D. Blood leader topic True Penitence. A fair attendance. David took heifer to Russell Pasture in morning.

8^th June 1908 (Monday)

Warm and sunny. Wind west. David painting at Club House with G. Sargent. I cut some lots in cemetery. Jim took door screen and swing to Depot for Berkley. Mr. Bernier Called this afternoon enquiring about coal. Somebody got a load on 3^rd April and he can’t find out who it is. Miss Dean called at Academy and told Jim she was going to Roslin this summer.

Contra Dancing in New Hampshire: Then and Now

presented by Dudley Laufman

Saturday, June 7 at 1:30 p.m.

New Ipswich Library (6 Main Street)

Since the late 1600s, the lively tradition of contra dancing has kept people of all ages swinging and sashaying in barns, town halls, and schools around the state.

Contra dancing came to New Hampshire by way of the English colonists and remains popular in many communities, particularly here in the Monadnock Region.

Dudley Laufman brings this tradition to life with stories, poems and recordings of callers, musicians, and dancers, past and present. Live music, always integral to this dance form, will be played on the fiddle and melodeon.

In a career that spans over seven decades, Dudley Laufman is recognized around the country for his artistry as a folk musician and dance caller. While working on a NH dairy farm in the late 1940s, he was introduced to contra dancing and immediately smitten. Mentored by Ralph Page, a master caller from Keene, Dudley called his first dance in 1948. By 1965, he was known throughout New England and was invited to perform at the Newport Folk Festival. In 1999, Laufman performed at the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival in Washington, DC. Other awards soon followed, including the NH Governor’s Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement (2001) and the Country Dance and Song Society of American Lifetime Achievement Award (2007). In 2009, he earned the National Heritage Fellowship, the highest honor for traditional artists. A poet and song writer as well, he co-authored Traditional Barn Dances and has recorded several CDs. A resident of Canterbury, Laufman regularly performs with the Canterbury Orchestra, which under his leadership has produced five recordings.

Generously supported by the Stearns-Burton Lecture Fund, this program is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.