A Virtual Dance Party...Boston to Lafayette

March 20, 2020

COVID-19 has closed down gatherings of more than 5, 10, 25  depending on your source. No contact closer than 6 feet, stay close to home. For sure, no public dancing.

I needed a dance fix.

8:00 PM
Text my friends Bernard and Rubia in Lafayette. 
“Put on your dancing shoes, The Revelers are in the CD rack, we’re gonna have a party in our kitchens!”

“Call us in 15, we’re finishing dinner.”

8:15 PM
Sent them a set list of 4 songs. A brief phone conversation about logistics ensues. "We’re going to connect a cell phone to a little boom box on the counter," they say. They are all in.

8:20 PM
Crank up the volume on the speakers in my kitchen.
Dial Lafayette on my cell phone.
Cue up the music… whoop and holler dancing around the stools around my kitchen table as if they were other dancers crammed into the tiny dance floor at The Blue Moon Saloon in Lafayette. I'm in the moment in my own alternate reality, feel the energy of the crowd, imagine the band on the stage about two feet above the dance floor, the musicians taking turns with their solos and me and my imaginary smiling dance partner in synch, styling away with spontaneously invented moves that draw smiles from the other dancers.
I can hear Bernard and Rubia doing the same thing together in their kitchen.

Our little fais do do finishes with a waltz, often a way the band in a Cajun dance hall ends an evening.

The best dance in Lafayette that night…maybe in all of southwest Louisiana and probably the only one!

Facetime, Zoom, Skype…we’re gonna get creative. We’re not going to miss a beat.
Danses virtuelles, la vague du futur

Based in Lafayette, this band has a national following. These top notch musicians play a mix of Cajun, Zydeco, swamp pop, covers and original material in one of the most musically alive cities in America.

PS

Asked Bernard to tell band members he knows what we just did... could be a wave of the future!

Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Comments

[Rebecca Wilson]

Wave of the future. I like the sound of that, but I hope in the future virtual dancing will be a choice not a necessity.

[Paul A Tamburello, Jr aka pt at large]

Thanks for this and the for alerting your readers about the two Zoom shows yesterday, one by The Revelers and one by The Pine Leaf Boys. I figured out how to use Zoom and tuned in to The Revelers and Blake Miller and Amelia. There were ways to send "tips" to the bands for entertaining us, sort of like paying a cover charge for a live performance.

[B'man]

I happened upon your dance party on Youtube. What fun!

[Paul A. Tamburello, Jr. aka pt at large]

One of the last songs Blake Miller and Amelia played at Zoom session was the traditional song "Quelle Belle Journée (the Friendship Song), quite lovely.