Video: Two of My Favorite Dancers, Together!

Here are two of my favorite traditional percussive dancers. I love how they are each so tuned into and connected to the music, especially in improvisational settings like this one. 

In this video, Melody Cameron of Mabou, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada (all of that is important!) and Nic Gareiss of Michigan (and many place beyond that) are caught on tape having an impromptu, probably late-night, exchange/playtime/conversation.  They were at the 2010 North Atlantic Fiddle Convention in Aberdeen, Scotland this July.  Later in this video they are joined by two other Cape Breton step dancers Mats Melin and Brandi McCarthy.

Cape Breton step dance was the first percussive dance style I learned, and is still my first love.  A 'neat and tidy' and 'close to the floor' tradition where most dancing is improvised on the spot in response to the music, the aesthetic is to wear shoes that have some snap to them but not taps (which I learned the hard way, but that's another story!).  In this video Melody also throws some Appalachian style clogging steps into the mix. 

Nic was just a kid when I first met him more than a decade ago, but had already been dancing longer than me.  Always an inspiration, his blog Dance is Music is, I think, the best way to describe his dancing.